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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


The   LAND    of 
LIVING   MEN 


By    RALPH    WALDO    TRINE 


DODGE    PUBLISHING    COMPANY 

220   EAST    23rd    STREET  NEW  YORK 


Copyright,  igTO, 
By  Ralph  Waldo  Trine 


A   FOREWORD 

There  are  certain  forces  and  certain  problems  of  our 
common  human  life  that  are  of  interest  to  practically 
every  reader  —  the  attaining;  to  an  habitually  happy 
or  peaceful  state  of  mind ;  the  development  of  personal 
power  or  attractiveness^  of  feature  or  of  form,  of  phy- 
sical or  of  spiritual  attractiveness ;  the  gaining;  or  the 
regaining:  and  the  enjoyment  of  sound  bodily  health 
and  vigour ;  the  attaining  to  a  state  of  independence, 
that  the  old  debt  may  be  paid  or  the  old  favour  repaid, 
or  that  the  long-desired,  and,  as  we  believe,  well-de- 
served good,  may  be  had;  or  even  of  being  sure  of 
sufficient  food  and  clothing  and  shelter,  that  we  may 
be  free  from  want  or  the  uncertainty  or  the  fear  of 
want  —  that  the  bill  may  be  paid,  and  promptly,  when 
the  pay-day  returns  —  and  after  all,  the  bread  and 
butter  problem  is  the  problem  of  ninety-nine  out  of 
every  hundred  during  this  our  common  journey.  . 

Now  it  is  said  that  people  are  interested  in  matters, 
and  in  books  that  deal  with  matters,  that  pertain  to 
their  individual  or  personal  good  or  gain,  or,  in  books 
that  afford  amusement  or  entertainment  —  fiction,  etc. 
They  are  not,  it  is  said,  interested,  except  to  a  very 
limited  extent,  in  books  that  deal  with  our  common 
relations,  social,  economic,  governmental,  in  matters  of 
community,  village,  city,  state  and  nation.  There  is 
truth  in  this  statement ;  and  it  is  quite  natural  that  we 


7v59206 


vi  A  Forczvord 

be  interested  primarily^  at  least  in  our  present  state  of 
development^  in  matters  that  pertain  to  our  own  per- 
sonal good  or  gfain. 

We  do  not  seem  to  realize^  or  fully,  yet,  tiowever,  the 
great  individual  loss  we  sustain  by  our  folly  in  allow- 
ing others  to  do  our  governing  for  us,  or  presumably 
for  us,  instead  of  being  long-headed  and  practical 
enough  to  attend  to  our  own  affairs  along  these  lines, 
thereby  keeping  in  our  own  possession  the  untold  loealth 
that,  through  our  own  negligence  or  short  sightedness 
or  weakness,  now  goes  annually  into  the  possession  of 
the  few  who  make  matters  of  government,  or  the 
manipulation  of  the  agencies  and  various  agents  of 
government,  their  business  —  the  men  who  belong  to 
the  class,  as  has  been  aptly  said,  find  it  highly  profitable, 
not  to  farm  the  farms,  but  to  farm  the  farmers. 

That  there  is  corruption,  or  mismanagement  and 
gross  waste  and  consequent  loss  to  us  all  under  our 
present  methods  and  in  our  present  conditions,  that 
there  are  high  charges  with  a  minimum  of  service,  that 
the  cost  of  living  is  growing  always  higher  and  in  far 
greater  proportion  than  is  our  increasing  means  to  meet 
these  costs,  is  now  profoundly,  and  in  many  cases, 
pinchingly,  evident  to  all.  The  fault  however  lies  in 
ourselves,  and  the  remedy  for  this  state  of  affairs  is 
completely  and  absolutely  in  our  own  hands. 

It  is  after  all  a  matter  that  comes  home  to  every 
individual  in  a  very  personal  and  practical  manner  as 
to  whether  or  not  he  takes  an  intelligent  and  active 
interest  in  matters  of  government.  The  time  has  come 
when  it  is  the  imperative  duty  of  every  man  and  every 


A  Foreivord  vii 

woman  to  become  quickly  conversant  with  and  to  take 
an  active  personal  interest  and  part  in  these  affairs^  and 
any  life  is  but  half  a  life  that  neglects  or  that  fails  in 
this. 

Agfain,  the  complaint  is  sometimes  entered  that  so 
many  times  books  dealing  with  matters  along  these 
lines  deal  with  them  in  a  manner  so  abstract,  so  in- 
volved, or  so  academic,  that  they  are  not  of  sufficient 
interest  to  draw  the  average  reader  to  them  ;  and  again 
it  is  said  that  some  books,  most  excellent  and  most 
valuable  in  themselves,  deal  with  such  limited  phases 
of  these  matters  that  scarcely  a  reader  out  of  a  thousand, 
or  one  out  of  ten  thousand,  has  the  time  to  become 
conversant  with  them,  that  while  they  are  undoubtedly 
of  great  value  to  the  special  student  or  worker,  they 
are  practically  valueless  to  the  average  reader  —  and  it 
is  the  average  reader  that  in  the  aggregate  determines 
the  conditions  and  the  destinies  of  all  governments 
such  as  ours. 

Realizing  the  large  degree  of  truth  in  the  foregoing 
statements,  and  the  great  need  that  calls  at  the  door 
of  each  of  us,  it  is  the  aim  in  this  volume  to  present  in 
as  concrete  and  as  clear-cut  —  and  it  must  be  confessed, 
as  interesting  a  manner  as  possible  —  a  survey  of  the 
conditions  that  exist  amongst  us,  some  of  which  are 
causing  us  tremendous  loss  and  that  are  undermining 
the  very  foundations  of  free  and  efficient  government; 
also  the  chief  causes  of  these  conditions  coming  among 
us,  and  the  agencies  still  at  work  quietly  and  subtly 
increasing  and  aiming  to  perpetuate  them;  and  also 
methods  —  some  of  which  have  proven   abundantly 


viii  A  Foreword 

effective  in  their  workings  elsewhere,  whereby  it  will  be 
possible  to  bring  an  end  to  these  conditions,  and  to  give 
us  those  that  will  serve  far  better  the  welfare  of  the 
rank  and  file  of  our  citizenship.  In  brief  —  to  present  in 
a  single  volume  for  the  ordinary  busy  reader,  both 
young  and  old,  certain  matters  that  would  not  be 
available  in  very  many  cases  otherwise. 

And  by  way  of  anticipating  a  certain  type  of  criticism, 
let  it  be  said  that  there  of  necessity  has  been  no  attempt 
at  any  exhaustive  treatment  of  any  of  the  matters 
dealt  with.  There  has  also  been  no  attempt  at  scholar- 
liness  —  though  it  is  always  somewhat  of  a  question  as 
to  what  scholarlincss  really  is.  The  concluding  chapt-r 
of  the  book  —  "  The  Life  of  the  Higher  Beauty  and 
Power  ^  —  may  be  questioned  as  to  its  having  a  place 
in  a  book  of  this  nature.  It  may  be  a  question, 
though  the  reader  himself  will,  in  the  end,  be  the  best 
judge  of  this.  j^_  ^_  ^ 

Sunnybrae  Farm 
Croton-on-the-Hudson 
New  York 


CONTENTS 

Page 

I.    A  Dream  of  Things  as  they  are  —  A  Vision  of 

Things  to  be i 

II.   The  Conditions,  Good  and  Bad  —  but  never  In- 
different—  that  prevail  among  Us   .'....       15 

III.  A  Certain  Inevitable  Law^  that  deals  with  Na- 

tions and  with  their  People 64 

IV.  As  to  Government  —  Something  that  can  never 

BE    Apart    from    the    People    except    to   their 
Great    Personal    Loss,    and    their    Ultimate 

Destruction 71 

V.    In    a    Great    "  People's    Movement  "    lies    the 
People's  Greater  Welfare  and  the  Safety  of 

ALL  THEIR  INSTITUTIONS  —  It  IS   DUE   NoW    ...         79 

VI.    Natural  Resources  and  Public  Utilities  for  the 

Public  Welfare 94 

VII.    Labor  and  its  Uniting  Power  —  Its  Strength  — 

its  Weakness  —  Its  Greater  Strength  ....     143 
VIII.    Agencies  through  which  we  shall  secure  the 
Return  of  an  Efficient  People's  Government 

—  AND  the  Return  of  their  Rights 186 

IX.    The  Great  Nation  —  Its  People,  its  Powers,  its 

Possibilities  —  The  Greater  Nation 235 

X.    The  Life  of  the  Higher  Beauty  and  Power  — 

Individual  —  National 269 

Supplementary i-xiv 


The   LAND   of 
LIVING    MEN 


A   DREAM  OF   THINGS  AS  THEY 
ARE  — A  VISION  OF  THINGS  TO  BE 

DREAM,  or  a  vision,  or  fancy,  I  know 
not ;  but  it  seemed  to  be  amid  surround- 
ings unknown  before  and  yet  it  seemed 
very  like  this  world.  But  there  was  a  dif- 
ference —  to  travel  one  had  in  thought  but  to  see  one's 
self  in  a  desired  locality,  or  in  the  presence  of  the 
desired  person,  and  he  was  there.* 

It  seemed  to  be  where  one  could  look  for  a  long  dis- 
tance, yet  it  was  not  a  hill  and  men  and  women  were 
coming  and  going.  It  seemed  to  be  neither  day  nor 
night,  for  one  could  discern  no  sun  nor  moon,  neither 
were  there  stars,  and  yet  it  was  light. 

And  I  heard  heavy  trampings  as  of  men  clad  in 
coarse  nailed  boots.  I  looked  and  presently  I  beheld 
the  form  of  a  man,  but  bent,  and  he  looked  closely  to 

*  It  is  the  teaching  of  Swedenborg  that  in  the  heavenly 
world,  to  travel  to  any  desired  place  we  see  ourselves  in 
thought  in  that  place,  and  immediately  we  are  there  ;  to  con- 
verse with  any  desired  person  we  see  ourselves  in  thought  in 
his  or  her  presence,  and  immediately  we  are  there. 

I 


2  TJic  Loud  of  Living  Men 

the  ground  before  him  as  he  walked.  Though  he 
seemed  tired,  weary,  and  as  if  he  would  be  glad  to  lie 
down  and  sleep  for  a  thousand  years,  yet  he  seemed  to 
be  hurrying  along  as  if  he  might  be  late  to  something. 
In  his  hand  he  carried  a  pail. 

And  as  I  looked  I  saw  others,  and  still  others. 
Some  were  coming,  some  were  going.  All  seemed 
encased  in  the  same  coarse  garments,  many  were 
weary,  and  all  seemed  bent  toward  the  ground,  and  all 
were  hurrying  along. 

And  as  I  wondered  pityingly  —  for  pity  seemed  to 
pervade  all  things  then  —  there  appeared  before  me  one 
who  seemed  to  come  to  satisfy  my  questionings.  He 
was  not  one  of  those  I  was  looking  upon  although  it 
seemed  as  if  at  one  time  he  might  have  been.  His 
face  was  as  if  it  some  time  had  known  great  suffering, 
but  there  was  now  a  look  of  strength  and  compassion, 
there  was  such  beauty  in  his  face  that  I  wondered  at  it 
all.  Moreover  he  seemed  to  know  all  things  and  my 
thoughts  as  quickly  as  I  knew  them  myself.  I  was 
about  to  make  inquiry  of  him  when  he  approached 
nearer  and  said  : 

"  These  are  of  a  company  numbering  many  millions 
upon  the  earth  who  do  its  heaviest  and  most  necessary 
work.  Were  they  not  to  go  to  their  work  daily  the 
industries  of  the  world  would  stop,  and  great  suffering 
and  privation  would  result."  Why  do  they  seem  so 
eager  I  thought  and  why  are  they  bent  so  to  the 
ground  ? 

"  Their  work  is  heavy.  Their  hours  are  long. 
They  have  but  very  little  time  with  their  families,  for 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  3 

they  must  work  diligently  and  faithfully  while  work 
lasts,  for  later  on  work  stops  and  for  some,  for  weeks, 
and  for  some,  for  months,  there  is  no  work,  and  their 
pay  were  they  to  work  every  day  in  the  year  is  not 
enough  to  keep  them  in  comfort.  " 

But  why,  I  thought,  and  I  contemplated  the  vast  mil- 
lions made  from  industry  even  in  my  country  every 
year,  is  their  pay  so  small  ? 

He  smiled  ;  but  he  did  not  answer  my  thought,  and  I 
knew  not  at  the  time  why  he  smiled  and  said  nothing. 

While  I  was  meditating  upon  all  this  I  heard  a  great 
commotion  as  if  outside  of  great  gates,  and  I  heard 
voices  and  the  cries  of  excited  men  by  the  score.  My 
companion  said,  "  They  are  men  out  of  work.  A  few 
are  to  be  taken  to-day,  though  it  will  be  scarcely  one 
from  a  score,  and  the  others  will  tramp  on  as  they  have 
for  many  weary  days  to  other  works." 

Scarcely  had  the  noise  subsided  and  the  eager  multi- 
tude of  men  gone  on  its  way  when  I  heard  excited 
and  angry  shouts.  I  looked  and  beheld  a  man  not  yet 
in  the  prime  of  life.  His  face  was  haggard  and  white 
and  as  he  ran  he  was  followed  by  a  crowd  of  shouting 
and  excited  men  and  boys.  I  heard  a  dull  sound  and 
then  I  saw  a  stone  fall  to  the  ground  and  one  corner  of 
it  was  wet  and  very  red.  I  saw  the  man  stagger  and 
fall  forward,  and  from  the  back  of  his  head  blood 
flowed.  A  woman  rushed  from  the  crowd.  "  It 's 
John,  I  feared  the  look  in  his  eyes  this  morning."  She 
kissed  the  white  face  and  with  her  lower  skirt  wiped 
the  bruised  and  bleeding  head.  And  the  child  she  car- 
ried in  her  arms  looked  on  in  wonder. 


4  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

Then  I  heard  the  clang  of  a  gong-  and  horses'  hoofs 
striking  the  hard  pavement  and  as  the  rapidly  gather- 
ing crowd  separated  I  noticed  that  the  man's  form  was 
very  thin.  My  companion  said  :  "  Long  out  of  work 
and  with  hungry  mouths  to  haunt  him,  he  has  stolen 
bread.     It 's  common." 

And  I  saw  —  I  knew  not  whence  they  came  or 
whither  they  went  —  a  large  company  that  seemed  to  be 
neither  men  nor  w^omen  for  they  were  not  grown,  nor 
were  they  erect.  They  did  not  seem  to  be  children,  for 
they  had  neither  children's  faces  nor  movements. 
"  These  were  children,"  said  m}^  companion,  "  put  to 
work  before  their  time.  Some  are  old  and  broken  now, 
and  though  still  young,  are  scarcely  able  to  keep  up  in 
the  race,  and  from  them  a  brood  still  worse  will  come.  " 
"  But  there  are  not  so  many,"  I  ventured.  "  In  your 
country  alone  there  are  at  this  moment  nearly  two 
million." 

"God,  Heaven  and  Hell,"  I  cried,  "if"  — 

"  Wait,  "  he  said,  and  before  he  had  spoken  I  heard 
a  commotion  as  of  doors  breaking  open,  and  under  lurid 
lights  and  amid  strains  of  coarse  quick  music  I  saw 
bedraggled  and  flushed  faced  and  harsh  voiced  women 
that  were  pushing  and  pulling  one  another,  and  when 
one  fell  others  seemed  even  with  vile  w-ords  to  kick  and 
strike  her.  With  a  sense  of  horror,  I  thought,  What 
is  this  ? 

"  This  is  a  low  dance  hall.  They  are  fighting  for  a 
brute  of  a  man.  "  I  heard  the  same  music  and  the  same 
noise  and  revel  from  other  places.  I  looked  and  saw 
place  after  place  of  the  same  type.    "  So  many,"  I  said, 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  5 

"  and  how  came  they  here?"  "  In  this  section  are  over  a 
thousand  to-night  and  there  will  be  to-morrow  ;  the 
ranks  are  always  full.  They  start  in  different  ways 
and  from  many  different  places."  I  looked  at  a 
group  with  whom  were  still  traces  of  refinement.  The 
faces  were  somewhat  marred,  but  the  hair  of  some  had 
great  beauty  in  its  colour.  "  These,"  he  said,  "  were 
employed  in  large  and  well-known  stores  and  establish- 
ments at  wages  so  small  that  when  food  was  gotten,  all 
was  gone.  They  struggled  for  a  while,  many  bravely, 
but  they  grew  weary  when  they  could  make  no  head- 
way, for  the  grace,  the  attraction,  the  fire  and  the 
dreams  of  youth  were  with  them.  Men  were  ready  to 
give  them  money.  For  a  while  they  found  the  way 
less  hard  and  dreary.  They  never  dreamed  of  these 
places;  but  all  find  their  way  here  in  time."  "  All?" 
I  said. 

"  Sometimes  a  rough  black  wagon  carries  a  rudely 
stained  box  out  through  a  long  street  and  through  a 
gateway  edged  with  drooping  trees,  and  some  are 
spared  these  resorts.  "  Then  I  became  conscious  again 
of  the  sights  and  sounds  about  me. 

So  horrible  it  all  seemed, that  I  said, "cursed  be  greed 
and  those  that" — "Lightly,"  he  said,  "  a  wealthy  owner 
of  one  of  the  large  establishments  in  which  some  of 
these  were  at  one  time  employed,  has  built  a  most 
beautiful  chapel  in  one  of  our  large  churches  and  it  has 
just  been  dedicated  to  Christ.  In  all  charity  he  is  most 
liberal." 

I  sat  musing  but  I  could  not  comprehend.  Then 
anger  seemed  to  vie  with  reason,  when  I  was  brought 


6  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

again  to  myself  by  the  sound  of  horses'  hoofs  hurrying' 
by.  They  drew  a  strange  looking  wagon.  It  was  fol- 
lowed by  two  rattling  carriages  that  were  drawn  by 
poorer  looking  horses.  In  the  first  was  a  gentle  looking 
woman  and  with  her  were  three  children.  In  the  sec- 
ond were  women  who  looked  something  like  those  that 
were  in  the  places  about  us,  but  they  seemed  to  be  of  a 
more  gentle  type. 

"  I  said,''  vokuiteered  my  companion,  "  that  some- 
times a  rudely  stained  box  is  carried  out  through  a 
long  street,  and  some  are  spared  these  resorts.  She 
was  so  gentle  and  beautiful  and  was  filled  with  such 
compassion  and  kindness.  So  young,  only  in  the 
early  twenties.  The  care  of  the  family  fell  largely 
upon  her,  but  she  fvas  never  strong  and  by  and 
by  she  fell  weary.  Then  kind  gentlemen  helped  her, 
though  they  received  more  than  they  gave.  She  went 
away  for  a  time,  but  her  help  never  failed  to  reach  the 
little  home.  By  and  by  she  returned,  but  all  hands 
were  raised  against  her,  and  her  fine  sensitive  spirit 
could  not  stand  before  it.  Again  she  went  away  and 
soon  the  White  Plague  came  to  be  her  companion,  but 
it  did  not  stay  with  her  long.  She  seemed  not  to  care, 
nor  had  she  any  fear.  From  her  savings  a  letter  car- 
ried each  fortnight  the  same  old  help  to  the  little  home, 
until  two  days  ago,  from  a  public  institution,  where 
even  with  a  sad  and  sweet  smile  she  left  it,  her  body 
with  a  little  envelope  containing  enough  to  bury  it,  w^as 
sent  back  to  her  mother's  home." 

And  as  I  thought  of  her  bravery,  her  goodness,  and 
her  youth,  then  "  All  hands  were  raised  against  her  " 


The  Land  of  Lii'iug  Men  7 

rang  in  my  ears  and  anger  seemed  to  seize  me.  "  It 
is  the  way  of  the  world,"  he  said,  "  but  few  are  wise 
enough  or  themselves  stainless  enough  to  under- 
stand." "But  we  all  have  our  failings  and  none  are 
perfect,"  I  volunteered.  I  wept  and  found  relief,  then 
involuntarily  I  cried,  "  Jesus  and  Mary  Magdalene  " 
—  "  Jesus  was  wise  and  full  of  compassion,  and  more, 
his  ozvii  life  icas  zvitJioiit  error." 

And  as  I  pondered  and  repeated  to  myself  his  words, 
my  companion  seemed  to  be  forgetful  of  my  presence 
and  stood  looking  out  into  the  space  before  us,  while  a 
strange  expression  covered  his  face.  I  looked  at  him 
but  said  nothing.  Presently  and  without  any  other 
movement,  even  of  the  head,  he  placed  his  hand  upon 
my  forehead  and  said,  "  Yonder !  "  My  surroundings 
seemed  changed  and  it  was  not  as  on  the  earth.  I 
looked  and  beheld  a  company  in  very  white  garments 
and  in  their  midst  was  one  who  seemed  as  if  she  had 
come  a  long  distance,  for  she  walked  as  if  weary,  and 
as  she  turned  her  face  I  saw  that  it  was  sad,  and  yet 
not  sad,  for  joy  was  in  it. 

And  two  were  leading  her  by  the  hand  and  they 
went  along  a  path  that  was  very  bright  and  that  be- 
came brighter  as  they  went.  And  there  walked  beside 
them  one  whose  form  was  not  that  of  a  woman  and 
He  was  clothed  with  a  greater  light.  I  wondered  upon 
it  all  and  when  I  perceived  again  I  saw  that  some 
were  seated  and  others  were  reclining  as  on  a  bank. 
Then  He  whose  form  was  not  that  of  a  woman  bent 
over  and  kissed  the  forehead  of  the  one ;  and  I  saw 
Him  no  more. 


8  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

Looking  again  I  could  no  longer  distinguish  from 
the  others  the  one  that  had  been  led.  And  I  thought 
—  she  must  be  rested  now.  And  immediately  they 
seemed  to  be  joined  by  hosts  of  others,  and  among  them 
were  little  children  and  young  men  and  maidens,  but 
I  saw  no  aged  there.  I  must  have  slept,  for  when  I  re- 
called my  surroundings  my  companion  had  taken  his 
hand  from  my  forehead  and  as  he  did  so  I  heard  him 
say,  "  They  are  returning."  I  looked  and  saw  the 
strange  looking  wagon  and  the  two  rattling  carriages 
as  they  retraced  their  course  along  the  road.  "  And  her 
mother  never  knew  it,"  said  my  companion.  "  And 
may  she  not  until  she  is  welcomed  and  cared  for  by 
the  one  who  was  welcomed  and  cared  for  to-day,  and 
then  to  know  will  not  hurt  her." 

"  I  am  grateful  for  this  revelation,"  I  said.  "  Would 
that  all  could  have  witnessed  it."  "  All,"  he  replied, 
"  who,  imperfect  themselves  are  prone  to  judge  or 
condemn  another.  Henceforth  you  shall  be  a  better 
man."  "  Amen  and  amen,"  I  shouted,  and  so  loudly  it 
seemed  as  the  whole  city  must  hear.  Then  I  thought, 
but  I  did  not  feel  ashamed. 

I  heard  a  low  rumble,  the  grinding  as  of  iron  upon 
iron,  a  sudden  jerking  sound.  A  crowd  quickly  gath- 
ered. A  woman  rushed  through  it  and  bore  something 
from  the  track.  There  was  blood  upon  the  track.  The 
form  was  limp  and  blood  trickled  down  upon  her  dress. 
Pale  and  trembling,  she  bore  it  through  a  door,  the 
entrance  to  a  long  dark  passageway.  My  companion 
said :  "  To-morrow  they  will  cart  it  away  to  the  Pot- 
ter's Field,     He  was  such  a  bright  lad,  and  of  great 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  g 

promise."  "  But  the  father?  "  I  said.  "  He  is  away  at 
his  work."  "  But  the  father's  work?  "  "  You  do  not 
understand,'  he  said,  and  again  he  smiled.  "  But 
surely,"  I  persisted,  "there  should  be  no  Potter's  Field 
in  a  country  such  as  this."  "  In  your  own  great  city," 
he  said,  ''  one  in  every  ten  is  buried  in  the  Potter's 
Field.  This  year  many  thousands  will  be  hauled  there. 
It  is  the  last  indignity  the  poor  fight  against,  but  the 
living  must  have  bread,  and  they  cannot  help  it."  The 
crowd  still  looked  at  the  blood  upon  the  track,  but  the 
car  had  moved  on. 

What  a  place,  I  thought,  for  a  child  to  play,  for  the 
street  was  not  wide,  and  it  seemed  to  be  very  dirty  and 
it  was  very  hot,  and  many  teams  were  going  and  com- 
ing, and  through  them  cars  that  seemed  never  to  end 
their  clanging,  were  threading  their  way.  The  noise 
and  now  and  then  the  smells  were  something  frightful. 
"  Look  about  you,"  he  said.  I  looked  and  in  the  one 
block  there  were  over  a  hundred  children  at  play. 
"  Why  do  they  play  here?  Why  do  they  not  go  to  the 
parks,  and  to  the  prairies  about  the  city,  and  out  into 
the  country?  "  And  again  he  smiled  and  said  nothing. 
The  air  was  close  and  it  seemed  as  if  we  were  in  some 
strange  place  underground  where  there  was  no  light 
nor  air,  only  noise  and  commotion  and  smells  in- 
describable. 

And  I  saw  a  little  cortege  similar  to  the  one  we  had 
seen  before  but  it  was  longer  as  it  threaded  its  way 
along.  "  Another  victim  of  the  plague."  "  The  plague?" 
"  The  White  Plague.  This  time  it  is  a  mother.  She 
worked  until  a  few  days  ago.     Last  year  the  father 


10  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

went  with  it  and  two  children.  Three  are  left.  In  the 
same  tenement  over  a  dozen  have  gone  with  it  in  a 
third  as  many  years.  This  is  its  home.  These  houses, 
these  rooms  were  built  for  it.  From  here  it  spreads 
itself  throughout  the  city.  Three  times  as  many  take 
it  here  as  in  other  parts."  I  said,  "  Why  have  they  not 
houses  with  more  light,  more  air,  more  open  space  ?  " 
And  again  he  smiled,  and  said  nothing.  It  seemed  as 
if  my  brain  were  on  fire  and  I  longed  for  full  breaths 
of  pure  air.  "  We  must  change,"  said  my  companion, 
and  turning  he  led  the  way. 

There  was  the  mingling  of  sounds  as  if  pieces  of  fine 
metal  were  striking  one  another  in  the  air;  and  out 
from  under  the  shade  of  wide-spreading  trees  and 
along  a  smoothly  paved  road  a  low  hanging  carriage 
rolled,  almost  without  noise.  In  it  were  four  men. 
All  looked  so  comfortable,  so  big,  and  so  well-to-do. 
Hope  seemed  to  seize  me  and  I  said,  if  only  these  men 
knew  of  the  conditions  we  have  been  witnessing,  they 
would  go  to  their  relief.  My  companion  listened,  but 
he  did  not  seem  to  share  in  my  enthusiasm,  and  at  the 
time  I  knew  not  why.  "  One,"  he  said,  "  is  owner  of 
the  mills  from  which  you  saw  the  coarsely  booted  and 
clothed  men  with  pails  in  their  hands  coming  and  go- 
ing, the  men  whose  wages  enable  them  to  live  only  in 
the  most  meagre  comfort  if  they  work  every  day  in 
the  year  which  they  never  do.  Very  large  sums  are 
saved  by  closing  the  mills  for  a  portion  of  each  year 
and  even  when  they  are  running,  some  work  always 
on  part  time  only. 

'•  His  companion  on  the  seat  with  him  is  owner  of 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  il 

works  where  many  hundreds  of  children  and  many 
women  are  employed.  Though  others  manage  the 
works  for  him,  they  have  machinery  which  children 
can  tend  that  saves  a  million  a  year  over  what  adult 
labour  would  cost.  It  is  very  hard  and  exacting  work 
for  the  little  ones  and  many  come  out  of  the  works 
crippled  or  stunted  and  deformed  for  life,  but  it  is  a 
great  saving  for  the  owner! 

"  The  other  is  very  rich  and  prominent,  the  owner  of 
many  apartment  houses  as  he  calls  them,  in  the  portion 
of  the  city  we  have  just  been  visiting.  Tenements 
and  lung-blocks  those  who  live  in  or  near  them  call 
them.  The  Honourable  Joseph,  his  friends  and  chari- 
table institutions  know  him  as.  Slimy  Joe  his  ten- 
ants and  those  who  have  close  dealings  with  him 
call  him ! 

"  The  fourth  is  a  man  who  has  never  worked  at  all. 
He  inherited,  properties  worth  many  millions.  Man- 
agers attend  to  these  and  collect  his  incomes.  Among 
them  are  many  extensive  railroad  properties.  His 
father  was  known  as  the  great  corruptionist.  His 
managers  follow  in  his  father's  practices.  He  is  a 
lavish  spender  and  loves  sport.  Though  large  and 
strong  looking,  he  is  never  well." 

But  all  the  rich  are  not  like  these,  I  volunteered. 
"  By  no  means,"  he  replied.  "  These  are  only  the  par- 
asitic, the  little  minded  rich,  those  whose  God,  whose 
religion,  whose  life  is  greed,  and  who  know  no  more. 
But  their  name  is  legion,  though  they  are  never  happy, 
never  at  peace.  But  remember  always  that  there  is 
that  large  company  of  the  splendid  rich,  to  whose  mas- 


12  The  Laud  of  Living  Men 

terly  ability  and  to  whose  devotion  to  the  good  of  their 
kind  and  of  the  nation's  welfare,  and  many  times  in  a 
manner  so  quiet  and  unobtrusive  that  it  is  scarcely 
known  by  the  public  at  large,  great  debts  of  admira- 
tion and  gratitude  are  due.  To  condemn,  or  to  judge 
indiscriminately,  is  a  mark  always  of  the  little  mind." 

"  The  people,  the  people,"  I  cried,  musing  on  the  great 
inequality  that  seemed  to  haunt  me.  "  The  people  at 
present  are  the  fools  of  the  nation.  They  do  not 
think.  They  have  little  imagination,  scarcely  enough 
to  know  their  power.  Though  they  are  ninety  out  of 
every  hundred,  they  stand  like  idiots  raving  at  the  con- 
ditions that  they,  through  their  own  lack  of  initiative,  or 
too  selfish  devotion  to  their  own  affairs,  have  allowed 
to  come  about.  Until  the  people  rule  in  their  own  af- 
fairs they  will  be  ruled  by  the  few  cunning  ones  who 
will  do  so  always  to  their  own  selfish  personal  gain. 
It  is  a  part  of  human  nature  that  those  who  know 
aught  of  the  world's  history  should  know  full  well  by 
this  time.  With  the  people  rests  the  redemption  as 
well  as  the  future  welfare  of  all,  and  some  day  "  —  and 
a  strange  light  passed  over  his  face  and  he  seemed 
filled  with  great  emotion,  but  did  not  finish  his  thought. 

Presently  he  continued,  "  A  large  hospital  that  many 
of  tlie  rich  help  support  was  destroyed  some  days  ago, 
and  a  great  charity  ball  is  being  given  to  help  rebuild 
it.  They  are  on  their  way  to  it  now.  A  little  later  as 
you  look  in  upon  it  you  will  see  women,  wives  and 
daughters  of  these,  and  others,  clad  in  garments  cost- 
ing almost  fabulous  prices,  and  decked  with  jewels 
and  gems  sufficient  in  value  to  feed  and  clothe  the  por- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  13 

tions  of  the  city  we  have  just  been  in  for  years.  I  will 
point  out  to  you  a  young-  man  who  has  recently  come 
into  possession  of  over  thirty  millions,  who  has  never 
done  a  useful  day's  work  in  his  life  and  who  perhaps 
never  will.  I  will  point  out  to  you  a  lad  of  but  twelve 
years  who  upon  his  father's  demise  will  fall  heir  to 
properties  worth  over  a  hundred  million,  all  made  from 
values  created  by  the  people  of  the  city  where  his 
properties  lie. 

Among  those  whom  you  will  see  to-night  you  will 
notice  many  most  vulgar  in  their  excessive  display, 
and  others  gross  and  vulgar  in  their  appearance,  for 
excessive  wealth  makes  gluttons  and  abnormals  of 
many.  And  when  you  see  the  haughty,  self-important 
air  on  the  part  of  many,  remember  it  is  merely  one  of 
the  weaknesses  of  human  nature  to  which  the  exces- 
sively rich  are  easy  victims,  and  that  it  will  be  more 
than  balanced  by  the  presence  of  many  admirable  and 
sensible  people,  who  will  be  there  to-night.  There  are 
few  of  the  very  rich  and  none  of  the  excessively  rich 
that  do  not  pay  heavy  penalties  for  their  abnormal 
hold  on  life,  the  same  as  the  excessively  poor.  In 
this  they  are  alike.  Rejoice  that  you  are  of  neither 
and  use  the  knowledge  you  have  gained  for  the 
good  of  both.  With  the  common  people  their  re- 
demption lies." 

I  thought  on  the  times  when  to  my  questions  he 
smiled  and  said  nothing,  and  then  I  seemed  to  under- 
stand clearly. 

"  With  the  people,"  repeated  my  companion,  as  he 
placed  his  hand  lightly  upon  my  head.     I  seemed  for 


14  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

a  while  to  be  absorbed,  yet  not  in  thought,  and  certain 
things  seemed  evident  to  me  then  that  I  had  not  under- 
stood before.  Presently  I  perceived  that  I  was  alone, 
when  a  strange  fascination  took  possession  of  me,  and 
it  holds  me  still. 


II 

TEE  CONDITIONS,  GOOD  AND  BAD— BUT  NEVER 
INDIFFERENT —THAT  PREVAIL  AMONG   US 

,E  are  accustomed  to  looking  upon  our- 
selves as  a  great  and  a  very  prosperous 
people.  The  people  of  other  nations 
are  accustomed  to  looking  upon  us  in 
much  the  same  light.  We  should  be  a  very  great 
and  uniformly  prosperous  people,  and  the  reasons 
indeed  are  many.  As  a  nation  we  have  had  advan- 
tages and  opportunities  that  have  never  been  equalled, 
perhaps,  in  the  world's  history.  We  have  been  free 
from  the  caste  systems  and  certain  progress-strangling 
customs  of  the  old  world  countries ;  we  have  enjoyed 
from  the  beginning  practically  full  civil  and  religious 
liberty ;  we  started  free  from  that  dreary,  grinding, 
hopeless,  drink-impelling  poverty,  that  is  the  bane  and 
the  curse  of  so  many  of  the  old  world  countries ;  we 
have  had  almost  universal  free  educational  opportuni- 
ties for  our  boys  and  our  girls,  for  our  young  men 
and  our  young  women,  and  even  for  the  older  when 
they  have  so  chosen.  Our  natural  products  from  soil, 
and  stream,  and  mine  have  been  almost  fabulous  in 
their  returns. 

We  should  be  a  uniformly  free  and  happy  and  pros- 
perous people.     But  we  are  not  uniformly  free,  happy, 

15 


i6  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

nor  prosperous.  For  all  practical  purposes,  we  do  in- 
dividually as  well  as  collectively,  enjoy  civil  freedom. 
But  he  who  is  not  economically  free,  is  in  a  slavery 
of  the  most  haunting  and  endeavor-crushing  type. 

And  several  —  around  ten  —  millions  of  our  people 
are  in  a  state  of  chronic  poverty  at  this  very  hour  — 
almost  one  out  of  every  eight,  or,  to  make  full  allow- 
ance, one  out  of  every  ten  of  all  our  people  are  in 
the  condition  where  they  have  not  sufficient  food,  and 
clothing,  and  shelter  to  keep  them  in  a  state  of  phys- 
ical and  mental  efficiency.  And  the  sad  part  of  it  is 
that  large  additional  numbers, —  numbers  most  ap- 
palling for  such  a  country  as  this,  are  each  year,  and 
through  no  fault  of  their  own,  dropping  into  this 
same  condition. 

And  a  still  sadder  feature  of  it  is,  that  each  year  in- 
creasingly large  numbers  of  this  vast  army  of  people, 
our  fellow-beings,  are,  unwillingly  on  their  part  and  in 
the  face  of  almost  superhuman  efforts  to  keep  out  of  it 
till  the  last  moment,  dropping  into  the  pauper  class,  — 
those  who  are  compelled  to  seek  or  to  receive  aid  from 
a  public,  or  from  private  charity,  in  order  to  exist  at 
all  —  already  in  numbers  about  four  million,  while  in- 
creasing numbers  of  this  class,  the  pauper,  sink  each 
year,  and  so  naturally,  into  the  vicious,  the  criminal, 
the  inebriate  class.  In  other  words  we  have  gradually 
allowed  to  be  built  around  us  a  social  and  economic  sys- 
tem which  yearly  drives  vast  numbers  of  hitherto  fairly 
well-to-do,  strong,  honest,  earnest,  willing  and  ad- 
mirable men  with  their  families  into  the  condition  of 
poverty,  and  under  its  weary,  endeavor-strangling  in- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  VJ 

fluences  many  of  these  in  time,  hoping  against 
hope,  strugghng  to  the  last  moment  in  their  semi- 
incapacitated  and  pathetic  manner  to  keep  out  of  it, 
are  forced  to  seek  or  to  accept  pubHc  or  private  charity, 
and  thus  sink  into  the  pauper  class. 

It  is  a  well  authenticated  fact  that  strong  men,  now 
weakened  by  poverty,  will  avoid  it  to  the  last  before 
they  will  take  this  step.  Many  after  parting  with 
everything  they  have  first,  break  down  and  cry  like 
babes  when  the  final  moment  comes,  and  they  can  avoid 
it  no  longer.  Numbers  at  this  time  take  their  own 
lives  rather  than  pass  through  the  ordeal,  and  still 
larger  numbers  desert  their  families  for  whom  they 
have  struggled  so  valiantly, —  it  is  almost  invariably 
the  woman  who  makes  her  way  to  the  charity  agencies. 
The  public  and  private  charities  cost  the  country  dur- 
ing the  past  year  as  nearly  as  can  be  conservatively 
arrived  at,  considerably  over  $200,000,000. 

Moreover,  a  strange  law  seems  to  work  with  an 
accuracy  that  seems  almost  marvellous.  It  is  this. 
Notwithstanding  the  brave  and  almost  superhuman 
struggles  that  are  gone  through  with,  on  the  part  of 
these,  before  they  can  take  themselves  to  the  public  or 
private  charity  for  aid,  when  the  step  is  once  taken, 
they  gradually  sink  into  the  condition  where  all  initia- 
tive and  all  sense  of  self-reliance  seems  to  be  stifled  or 
lost,  and  it  is  only  a  rare  case  now  and  then  that  they 
ever  cease  to  be  dependent,  but  remain  content  with 
the  alms  that  are  doled  out  to  them, —  practically  never 
do  they  rise  out  of  that  condition  again.  Talk  with 
practically  any  charity  agent  or  worker,  one  with  a 


i8  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

sufficiently  extended  experience  and  you  will  find  that- 
there  is  scarcely  more  than  one  type  of  testimony  con- 
cerning this.  And  as  this  condition  gradually  becomes 
chronic  and  endeavor  and  initiative  and  self-respect  are 
lost,  a  certain  proportion  then  sink  into  the  condition 
of  the  criminal,  the  diseased,  the  chronically  drunk, 
the  inebriate,  from  which  reclamation  is  still  more 
difficult. 

There  are  reasons  for  these  conditions  coming  about, 
and  one  reason  chief  among  them  all,  that  we  shall 
consider  most  fully  in  its  proper  place.  First,  however, 
let  us  look  still  more  minutely  into  the  conditions  of  the 
type  we  have  been  considering  that  we  may  have  be- 
fore us  facts  sufficient  in  number  and  in  power  to 
impel  us  to  an  examination  of  the  causes  which  have 
brought  about  these  conditions. 

As  has  been  stated,  there  are  at  the  present  time 
around  ten  millions  of  our  fellow-beings  living  in  a 
state  of  poverty,  that  is,  without  sufficient  food  and 
clothing  and  shelter  to  keep  them  in  a  first-class  con- 
dition even  as  animals  are  kept, —  to  keep  them  in  a 
state  of  efficiency  to  compete  in  the  struggle  for  work ; 
and  when  at  work,  the  rush  and  the  strain  in  many 
centres  has  become  so  great  and  the  competition  for 
even  a  mere  livelihood  so  keen,  that  no  one  can  afford 
to  be  even  for  the  shortest  period  in  anything  but  a 
state  of  full  and  complete  efficiency. 

The  above  estimate  is  based,  among  others,  upon  the 
careful  estimates  made  by  Mr.  Robert  Hunter,  in  that 
admirable  book,  "  Poverty,"  *  and  has  been  formulated 

*  McMillan  &  Company,  New  York  and  London. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  19 

from  a  very  wide  range  of  statistics  and  facts  and 
observations.  Moreover,  as  this  estimate  has  been 
made  only  on  the  basis  of  the  distress  which  manifests 
itself,  such  as  pauper  burials,  yearly  evictions,  the 
numbers  applying  for  public  charity,  the  vast  armies  out 
of  employment  for  some  portion  of  the  year,  it  must 
be  most  clearly  evident  that  there  is  a  very  large  ad- 
ditional number  who  are  in  great  need,  many  in  dire 
distress,  who  suffer  keenly  but  bear  it  bravely,  and 
suffer  and  struggle  on,  without  its  ever  becoming  evi- 
dent to  the  world. 

After  stating  that  in  1903,  20  per  cent  of  the  people 
of  Boston  were  in  distress  ;  in  1899,  18  per  cent  of  the 
people  of  the  New  York  State;  in  1903,  14  per  cent 
of  the  families  of  Manhattan  were  evicted ;  and  every 
year  10  per  cent  (about)  of  those  who  die  in  Man- 
hattan have  pauper  burials, —  facts  taken  directly  from 
city  and  state  statistics,  and  the  pathos  and  tragedy 
and  suffering  they  stand  for  so  plainly  evident,  Mr. 
Hunter  goes  on  to  say :  "  These  figures  furthermore, 
represent  only  the  distress  which  manifests  itself. 
There  is  no  question  but  that  only  part  of  those  in 
poverty,  in  any  community,  apply  for  charity.  I  think 
anyone  living  in  a  Settlement  will  support  me  in  saying 
that  many  families  who  are  obviously  poor  —  that  is, 
underfed,  underclothed,  or  badly  housed  —  never  ask 
for  aid  or  suffer  the  social  disgrace  of  eviction.  Of 
course,  no  one  could  estimate  the  proportion  of  those 
who  are  evicted  or  of  those  who  ask  assistance  to  the 
total  number  in  poverty ;  for  whatever  opinion  one 
may  have  formed  is  based,  not  on  actual  knowledge, 


20  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

gained  by  inquiry,  but  on  impressions,  gained  through 
friendly  intercourse.     My  own  opinion  is  that  prob- 
ably "not  over  half  of  those  in  poverty  ever  apply  for 
charity,  and  certainly  not  more  than  that  proportion 
are  evicted  from  their  homes.     However,  I  should  not 
wish  an  opinion  of  this  sort  to  be  used  in  estimating 
from  the  figures  of  distress,  etc.,  the  number  of  those 
in  poverty.     And  yet   from  the   facts   of   distress,   as 
given,  and   from'  opinions   formed,  both  as  a  charity 
agent  and  as  a  Settlement  worker,  I  should  not  be  at 
all  surprised  if  the  number  of  those  in  poverty  in  New 
York,  as  well  as  in  other  large  cities  and  industrial 
centres,  rarely  fell  below  25  per  cent  of  all  the  people." 
Speaking  of  unemployment,*  and  when  one's  wage  is 
about  a  "  living  wage,"  that  is,  sufficient  to  keep  him 
and  his  family  in  fair  condition,  providing  he  loses  no 
time  whatever,  we  can  easily  see  what  unemployment 
even  for  a  very  short  period  must  necessarily  mean, 
Mr.   Hunter   says :    "  The   figures   of   unemployment, 
although  very  imperfect,  show  that  the  evil  is  wide- 
spread, even  in  times  of  prosperity.    ...    In  the  last 
census  the  number  found  to  be  unemployed  at  some- 
time during  the  year  was  6,468,964,  or  22.3  per  cent 

*  At  this  present  time  —  a  period  of  unusual  commercial 
and  industrial  activity  —  less  than  the  average  number  are  out 
of  employment.  But  with  our  present  methods,  this  dreaded 
and  hard  condition,  that  has  in  the  aggregate  affected  millions 
among  us,  is  liable  to  repeat  itself  at  any  time.  Any  fair  deal- 
ing, therefore,  with  the  economic  conditions  of  the  nation 
cannot  omit  a  consideration,  or  at  least  a  mention,  of  these 
conditions. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  21 

of  all  the  workers  over  ten  years  of  age,  engaged  in 
gainful  occupations.  Thirty-nine  per  cent  of  the  male 
workers  unemployed,  or  2,069,546  persons,  were  idle 
from'  four  to  six  months  of  the  year.  These  figures 
are  for  the  country  as  a  whole,  for  all  industries  in- 
cluding agriculture.  In  manufacturing  alone  the  un- 
employment rose  to  27.2  per  cent  of  all  the  workers.  In 
the  industrial  states  of  the  East  and  North  the  per- 
centage of  unemployment  is  larger  than  for  the  country 
as  a  whole. 

That  very  large  number  of  workers,  heads  of  fam- 
ilies, receive  for  their  work  an  insufficient  amount  to 
keep  themselves  and  their  families  in  comfort  as  well 
as  in  a  state  of  efficiency,  is  a  well-ascertained  fact. 
Very  large  numbers  are  not  receiving  what  is  known 
as  a  "  living  wage."  That  there  are  those  who  do  re- 
ceive enough  to  keep  themselves  and  their  families  in 
comfort,  but  who  fail  to  do  so,  either  on  account  of 
intemperance,  or  bad  management,  or  misfortune  of 
some  kind,  or  through  lack  of  good  management,  or 
by  reason  of  some  other  cause  or  causes,  is  undoubt- 
edly true,  and  to  deny  it  would  be  entirely  useless. 
That,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  vast  numbers  who 
are  receiving  a  wage  insufficient  even  by  the  utmost 
economy,  good  management  and  self-denial,  to  keep 
themselves  in  a  state  of  comfort  and  efficiency  is  most 
abundantly  true.  Were  this  number  very  small  instead 
of  being  of  such  enormous  proportions,  it  would  be  a 
menace  to  the  highest  welfare  of  the  country  as  well  as 
a  disgrace  so  great  as  to  demand  that  its  causes  be 
ascertained  and  eradicated. 


22  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

It  would  be  a  very  hard  matter,  as  can  readily  be 
seen,  to  establish  a  necessary  or  "  living  wage  "  that 
would  be  such  for  all  portions  of  the  country,  because 
living  expenses  in  some  sections  are  necessarily  con- 
siderably higher  than  in  others.  We  can  approach, 
however,  to  an  average  necessary  wage  by  ascertaining 
what  good  authorities,  as  well  as  careful  investigators, 
have  practically  decreed  as  a  necessary  wage  in  various 
employments  as  well  as  sections  of  the  country.  John 
Mitchell  has  said,  in  his  book  on  "  Organized  Labor  " : 
"  For  the  great  mass  of  unskilled  workingmen,  ...  re- 
siding in  towns  and  cities  with  a  population  of  from 
five  thousand  to  one  hundred  thousand,  a  fair  wage,  a 
wage  consistent  with  American  standards  of  living, 
should  not  be  less  than  $600  a  year.  Less  than  this 
would,  in  my  judgment,  be  insufhcient  to  give  to  the 
workingman  those  necessaries  and  comforts  and  those 
small  luxuries  which  are  now  considered  essential." 

It  has  been  shown  by  the  Massachusetts  Bureau  of 
Statistics  of  Labor  ( 1901 )  that  $754  a  year  is  required 
for  a  family  of  five  persons  to  live  on.  An  able  official 
of  one  of  the  largest  New  York  City  charities  states 
that  as  a  result  of  his  observations  two  dollars  a  day, 
or  about  $624  a  year,  is  necessary  for  a  family  of  five 
in  New  York  City.  Without  going  farther  into  the 
matter  this  would  establish  an  average  necessary  wage 
of  about  $659  a  year ;  though  coming  along  a  little 
later,  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation  Report  on  the 
standard  of  living  for  1907  says:  "It  requires  no 
statistics  to  bring  proof  that  $600  and  $700  is  wholly 
inadequate  to   maintain   a   proper   standard  of  living, 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  23 

and  no  self-respecting  family  should  be  asked  or  ex- 
pected to  live  on  such  an  income.  The  committee  be- 
lieves that  with  an  income  of  between  $700  and  $800 
a  family  can  barely  support  itself,  provided  it  is  sub- 
ject to  no  extraordinary  expenditure." 

In  the  light  of  this  it  will  be  interesting  as  well  as 
valuable  to  see  what  in  various  localities,  as  well  as 
lines  of  work,  the  actual  wages  received  are.  The  cen- 
sus of  1900  shows,  that  the  average  yearly  earnings  of 
each  of  5,308,406  persons  engaged  in  manufacturing 
was  $437.96.  The  previous  census,  that  of  1890, 
showed  that  it  was  $444.83  per  worker.  This  slight 
difference,  the  census  bureau  says :  "  was  only  an 
apparent  one,  due  partly  to  the  exclusion  of  high- 
salaried  foremen  and  managers  from  the  returns  of 
the  census  of  1900,  partly  due  also  to  the  more  com- 
plete returns  of  the  lower-paid  labor  in  the  south." 

The  following  table  (the  census  of  1900)  subdivides 
the  census  compilation  for  a  number  of  cities  as  follows : 

In  the  10  largest  cities  the  average  number  of  wage- 
earners  was  1,412,831,  and  the  average  yearly  wages 
was  $489;  in  the  154  next  largest  cities,  1,599,033,  and 
its  average  yearly  wages  $445 ;  outside  these  cities, 
2,294,279,  and  the  average  yearly  wages  $400.  For 
this  number  of  wage-earners,  a  little  over  five  million, 
the  average  wage  therefore,   was  in   round  numbers, 

$445- 

Dr.  Peter  Roberts  says  that  the  average  yearly  wage 

in  the  anthracite  coal  district  is  less  than  $500,  and  that 

about  60  per  cent  of  the  workers  receive  less  than  $450. 

The  Federal  census  for  1900  states  that  11  per  cent  of 


24  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

the  male  workers  over  i6  years  of  age  employed  in  the 
New  England  cotton  mills,  received  a  rate  of  pay 
amounting  to  less  than  $6  a  week,  —  about  $300  a 
year.  This,  it  must  be  noted,  was  their  rate  of  pay, 
that  is,  what  they  would  have  earned  had  they 
worked  every  day  in  the  year,  hence  not  the  actual 
wage  received. 

In  the  Middle  States  nearly  a  third  of  all  the  workers 
are  receiving  a  rate  of  wages  less  than  $300  per  year, 
and  in  the  Southern  States,  considerably  over  half  — 
59  per  cent  —  are  receiving  less  than  this  amount. 
When  the  time  that  they  cannot  work  is  taken  out,  we 
can  readily  see  what  this  amount  means.  In  many 
cases  it  means  at  least  one  fourth  less  in  actual  wages 
received. 

From  this  we  are  able  to  get  some  idea  of  what  the 
needs  of  some  millions  in  the  country  are  compared  to 
what  they  are  able  actually  to  receive  to  meet  these 
needs.  And  then  when  sickness  comes,  or  death,  or 
accident,  or  misfortune  of  any  type  as  well  as  being 
temporarily  thrown  out  of  employment,  which  is  many 
times  a  misfortune  of  the  gravest  moment,  we  can 
readily  see  what  distress  and  uncertainty  must  result. 
Certainly  we  need  brought  about  in  the  nation  a  con- 
dition that  gives  an  economic  and  industrial  state 
which  guarantees  at  least  a  fairly  decent  living  wage 
and  a  regularity  of  employment  to  the  great  hosts  who 
to-day  are  denied  them.  This,  indeed,  is  fundamental. 
I  can  scarcely  resist  here  the  impulse  to  quote  an- 
other paragraph  or  two  from  Mr.  Hunter's  admirable 
work ; 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  25 

''Among  the  many  inexplicable  things  in  life,  there 
is  probably  nothing  more  out  of  reason  than  our  dis- 
regard for  preventive  measures  and  our  apparent  will- 
ingness to  provide  almshouses,  prisons,  asylums,  hos- 
pitals, homes,  etc.,  for  the  victims  of  our  neglect. 
Poverty  is  a  culture  bed  for  criminals,  paupers, 
vagrants,  and  for  such  diseases  as  inebriety,  insanity, 
and  imbecility ;  and  yet  we  endlessly  go  on  in  our  un- 
concern, or  in  our  blindness,  heedless  of  its  sources, 
believing  all  the  time  that  we  are  merciful  in  adminis- 
tering to  its  unfortunate  results.  Those  in  poverty  are 
fighting  a  losing  struggle,  because  of  unnecessary  bur- 
dens which  we  might  lift  from  their  shoulders ;  but 
not  until  they  go  to  pieces  and  become  drunken,  va- 
grant, criminal,  diseased,  and  suppliant,  do  we  con- 
sider mercy  necessary.  But  in  that  day  reclamation  is 
almost  impossible,  the  degeneracy  of  the  adults  infects 
the  children,  and  the  foulest  of  our  social  miseries  is 
thus  perpetuated  from  generation  to  generation.  From 
the  millions  struggling  with  poverty  come  the  millions 
who  have  lost  all  self-respect  and  ambition,  who 
hardly,  if  ever,  work,  who  are  aimless  and  drifting, 
who  like  drink,  who  have  no  thought  for  their  chil- 
dren, and  who  live  contentedly  on  rubbish  and  alms. 
But  a  short  time  before  many  of  them  were  of  that 
great,  splendid  mass  of  producers  upon  which  the 
material  welfare  of  the  nation  rests.  They  were  in 
poverty,  but  they  were  self-respecting;  they  were 
hard-pressed,  but  they  were  ambitious,  determined, 
and  hard  working.  They  were  also  underfed,  under- 
clothed,  and  miserably  housed^ — the  fe^ir  and  dr^ad 


26  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

of  want  possessed  them,  they  worked  sore,  but  g-ained 
nothing,  they  were  isolated,  heart-worn  and  weary." 

It  is  true,  as  can  be  readily  established,  that  during 
the  past  few  years  there  has  been  on  the  whole  an  in- 
crease of  wages, —  though  by  no  means  in  all  cases, — 
but  at  the  same  time  through  various  other  combina- 
tions of  economic  causes  there  has  been  an  increase  in 
the  prices  of  the  various  commodities  as  well  as  actual 
necessities  of  life,  many  of  which  have  been  enormous 
and  out  of  all  keeping  with  whatever  advance  there 
has  been  in  wages.  According  to  the  Dun  Mercantile 
Agency  report  on  March  i,  1906,  the  cost  of  living 
for  the  entire  country  was  then  the  highest  it  had  been 
during  the  thirty  years  it  has  kept  a  record,  and  since 
that  time  it  has  gone  forward  by  leaps  and  bounds. 
This  coupled  with  the  uncertainty  of  employment  in 
so  many  lines  of  work,  that  is,  the  necessary  non- 
employment  during  a  certain  number  of  weeks  in  the 
year,  works  in  many  cases,  as  we  can  readily  see, 
almost  untold  hardships. 

We  are  still  considering  this  vast  army  of  several 
millions  in  our  country  who  are  living  in  poverty  in 
the  face  of  our  great  apparent  prosperity,  much  of 
which  is  indeed  apparent  when  the  facts  are  carefully 
looked  into.  There  has  been  of  late  years  a  great  pros- 
perity, but  confined  so  generally  to  such  a  small  group, 
or  to  such  small  groups  of  people,  that  its  force  is  to 
a  great  measure  lost  when  considered  in  connection 
with  the  great  mass  of  the  people. 

The  number  of  propertyless  persons,  that  is,  tenants, 
in  a  state  or  country,  is  many  times  a  good  criterion  of 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  27 

the  real  standard,  or  rather  the  diffusion  of  its  pros- 
perity. The  census  returns  for  1900  show  that 
8,365,739  families,  or  54  per  cent  do  not  own  the 
homes  in  which  they  live,  that  is,  they  are  continually 
paying  rent.  Those  owning  and  occupying  mortgaged 
homes  were  2,196,375;  while  those  living  in  homes 
that  were  wholly  and  actually  their  own  were 
4,761,211,  or  but  31  per  cent  of  the  total  number  of 
families  in  the  country.  Of  course,  the  number  of 
families  owning  their  own  homes  is  much  smaller  in 
the  cities  than  in  the  smaller  towns.  In  several  of  our 
larger  cities,  probably  99  per  cent  of  the  wage-earners 
do  not  own  the  homes  in  which  they  live,  but  are  each 
year  paying  out,  sometimes  as  much  as  40  per  cent  of 
their  earnings,  in  rent.  I  have  seen  it  estimated  that 
the  amount  paid  in  rent  and  in  interest  on  mortgaged 
homes  is  at  least  two  billion  dollars  per  year, —  less 
the  amount  paid  in  taxes, —  and  this  vast  amount  is 
annually  transferred  into  the  pockets  of  10  per  cent  of 
the  population,  the  rent  paid  for  property  used  as 
homes  only. 

The  last  Federal  census  shows  the  following  percent- 
age of  homes  rented  in  the  various  cities  enumerated : 

Boston    81. 1 

Chicago    74-9 

Cincinnati    79- 1 

Fall  River   82.0 

Holyoke    80.6 

New  York    (Manhattan  ) 94.1 

Philadelphia    77-9 


28  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

In  i6o  cities,  of  at  least  25,000  inhabitants  each,  the 
average  number  of  tenants  is  seventy-four  in  every 
hundred. 

When  we  consider  the  great  number  of  families 
whose  wages  or  incomes  are  scarcely  sufficient  to  keep 
them  above  continual  want,  or  in  other  words,  above 
the  poverty  line,  and  then  only  when  they  are  working 
every  work-day  of  the  year  we  can  see  what  havoc  is 
wrought  when  any  extra  calls  are  made  or  burdens 
thrown  upon  them,  when  sickness  or  accident  comes, 
or  death  takes  place,  either  on  the  part  of  the  bread- 
winner or  in  his  family.  When  one  is  receiving  just 
a  living  wage,  or  as  in  so  many  cases,  less  than  a  living 
wage,  it  means  untold  hardship  when  any  of  these 
come.  This  undoubtedly  is  one  of  the  great  agencies 
that  keeps  a  large  number  of  this  great  army  in 
poverty. 

The  frightful  killings  and  maimings  that  are  con- 
tinually going  on  in  connection  with  our  railroads  and 
various  other  large  industries, —  and  we  are  the  most 
backward  country  in  the  world  in  our  gross  neglect  in 
compelling  greater  safety  and  care, —  is  also  respon- 
sible for  untold  hardship  and  suffering.  To  show  how 
dangerous  and  uncertain  the  work  of  a  railway  em- 
ployee is,  the  following  facts  will  indicate.  The  Inter- 
state Commerce  Commission  for  the  year  1902  re- 
ported among  employees  53,493  injured  or  killed, 
among  passengers  7,028,  other  persons,  12,729,  with  a 
total  of  73,250.  These  figures  are  indeed,  scarcely  be- 
lievable. And  in  the  previous  year,  out  of  every  399 
employees,  one  was  killed,  and  one  out  of  every  26  was 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  29 

injured.  The  trainmen, —  engineers,  firemen,  con- 
ductors, brakemen,  etc.,  are  the  greatest  sufferers. 
Among  these  one  was  killed  for  every  137  employed, 
and  one  was  injured  for  every  eleven  employed.  It 
is  indeed  difficult  to  believe  that  in  this  day  and  age 
such  slaughter,  and  much  of  it  so  unnecessary,  is  per- 
mitted to  go  on  year  after  year :  and  strange  as  it 
may  seem  the  railroad  owners  or  managers  resist,  and 
resist  most  powerfully,  practically  every  attempt  that 
is  made  to  compel  them  to  adopt  various,  and  many 
times  well  known  safety  devices. 

The  Accident  Bulletin  issued  by  the  Commission  for 
the  three  months  ending  March  31,  1906,  shows  the 
total  number  of  casualties  to  passengers  and  employees 
to  be  18,296  (1,126  killed  and  17,170  injured).*  In 
closing  the  Bulletin  says : 

"  The  most  disastrous  accident  reported  in  the  pres- 
ent bulletin  —  a  collision,  causing  thirty-four  deaths 
and  injuring  twenty-four  —  was  due  to  the  striking 
failure  of  the  train-despatching  system.  A  telegraph 
operator  at  a  small  and  lonely  station,  who  had  been 
on  duty  all  day  and  more  than  half  the  night,  fell 
asleep,  and  on  awakening  misinformed  the  train  de- 
spatcher  as  to  what  had  occurred  while  he  was  asleep. 
It  is  pertinent  to  observe  that  the  block  system  re- 
peatedly advocated  by  the  Commission,  is  the  true 
means  that  ought  to  be  adopted  for  such  distressing 
disasters  as  that  reported  in  Accident  Bulletin  No.  19, 
just  made  public." 

*  The  last  Bulletin  contains  a  report  better  than  has  ever 
been  made  before. 


30  The  La)id  of  Liz'i]ig  Men 

"  These  injuries  to  railway  workmen  are  more 
serious  than  at  first  appears,  for  very  few  of  the  men 
who  are  injured  are  over  thirty-five,  and  most  of  them 
are  in  the  twenties.  This  period  —  between  twenty 
and  thirty-five  —  is  the  most  important  period  of  a 
workman's  Hfc.  It  is  the  time  when  he  is  of  utmost 
value  to  his  family,  since  the  children  are  still  too 
young  to  take  up  the  support  of  the  family. 

"  The  responsibility  of  the  railroads  for  poverty,  re- 
sulting from  injuries  or  casualties,  is  of  three  kinds  at 
least.  First :  In  many  cases  they  overwork  their  em- 
ployees. Dr.  Samuel  McCune  Lindsay  says :  '  Emer- 
gencies frequently  occur  due  to  accidents  or  condition 
of  weather  when  men  may  be  required  to  work  contin- 
uously from  twenty  to  thirty  hours,  and,  in  exceptional 
cases,  men  have  been  continuously  at  work  in  train 
service  for  thirty-six  hours.'  Second:  Many  railroad 
systems  have  resisted  and  violated  the  law  compelling 
them  to  put  on  automatic  couplers,  and  they  are  now 
fighting  the  introduction  of  the  block  system,  both  of 
which  improvements  are  designed  to  prevent  accidents 
and  injuries.  Third:  In  case  of  accidents,  'company' 
physicians  and  lawyers  hasten  immediately  to  the 
place  of  the  accident,  and,  if  possible,  persuade  the 
workmen  to  sign  contracts  by  which  they  agree,  for 
some  small  immediate  compensation,  to  release  the 
company  from  any  further  liability.  I  have  known 
many,  many  cases  where  workmen  have,  for  a  few  dol- 
lars signed  away  their  rights  to  sue  when  their  in- 
juries have  been  as  serious  as  the  loss  of  a  leg  or  arm. 
In  the  seventeen  years  ending  June  30,  1902,  103,320 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  31 

persons  were  killed,  and  587,028  injured  by  the  rail- 
way industry."  * 

Of  the  anthracite  regions,  Dr.  Peter  Roberts,  who 
has  made  a  very  careful  study  of  the  industrial  and 
social  conditions  there,  says :  "  Nearly  half  the  em- 
ployees have  no  provision  for  either  the  incapacitated 
through  accident  or  for  the  maintenance  of  widows 
and  orphans  when  death  befalls  fliose  who  provide  for 
them  in  this  hazardous  calling.  Many  operators  dis- 
play generosity  worthy  of  emulation ;  others  manifest 
criminal  indifiference  to  the  sufferings  of  employees 
and  their  families  because  of  accident.  ...  To  leave 
these  men  to  the  mercy  of  overbearing  operators  in 
case  of  injury  and  death  is  unworthy  of  the  civilization 
of  the  century  in  which  we  live." 

From  these  facts  and  figures  we  can  see  what  a 
large  number  of  semi-incapacitated,  and  in  case  of  the 
death  of  the  breadwinner  what  a  la'rge  number  of 
practically  dependent  people  are  thrown  each  year 
upon  the  public  for  support,  or  who  have  to  accept  the 
condition  of  the  pauper.  We  have  much  to  learn  from 
the  German  system  in  this  respect.  As  a  result  of 
statistics  gathered  in  connection  with  its  splendidly 
growing  insurance  systems,  —  for  old  age,  accident, 
sickness,  infirmity,—  it  has  made  an  efifort  to  find  out 
who  is  responsible  for  the  suffering,  and  to  demand 
accordingly  compensation  for  the  injured.  In  other 
words  it  has  fixed  not  upon  the  individual,  who  is 
many  times  entirely  helpless  in  regard  to  the  matter, 

*"  Poverty."— Robert  Hunter,  p.  38. 


32  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

but  upon  industry  and  upon  society  the  responsibility 
for  much  of  its  poverty  and  attendant  suffering.  It 
found  that  80  per  cent  of  all  accidents  in  industrial 
lines  were  due  to  the  "  professional  risks  "  of  industry 
itself,  and  as  a  consequence  the  industries  of  that 
nation  must  bear  the  cost  of  these  accidents/^  and  not 
the  workingmen  themselves.  How  different  from  our 
almost  barbarous  conditions  in  this  respect. 

Certainly  the  criminal  negligence  of  the  railroads 
as  well  as  other  great  lines  of  industry  in  this  terrible 
and  to  a  large  extent  preventable  slaughter, —  at  the 
cost  of  slightly  reduced  dividends  only,  is  indeed  ap- 
palling, and  is  equalled  only  by  the  stupid  negligence 
of  the  public  in  allowing  it  to  continue.  A  change  will 
come,  however. 

Sickness  means  far  more  to  the  wage-earner  than  to 
any  other  class,  and  for  two,  if  not  indeed  for  more, 
reasons.  In  the'first  place  the  loss  of  the  wage  if  it  be 
the  wage-earner,  or  the  increased  expenses  if  it  be  one 
of  his  family,  means  immediate  hardship  where  there 
is  no  reserve  power,  as  in  such  large  numbers  of  cases 
where  one  is  receiving  just  a  living  wage  there  cannot 
be ;  and  in  the  second  place,  the  care  and  attention  that 
can  be  secured  are  not  at  all  equal  to  those  that  can  be 
had  by  the  more  well-to-do.  Especially  is  this  true 
when  so  many  hundreds  of  thousands  are  compelled  to 
live  in  the  types  of  tenements  landlords  are  permitted 
to  extract  their  rent  from.     But  this  is  again  the  re- 

* "  Workman's  Insurance  Abroad,"  by  Dr.  Zacher,  1898, 
Berlin. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  33 

suit  of  our  general  economic  condition,  for  people 
would  not  live  in  these, —  some  would,  but  very,  very 
few, —  if  their  incomes  or  wages  permitted  them  to 
live  in  quarters  any  better. 

These  conditions  to  a  great  extent  are  responsible 
for  that  slowly  devouring,  subtle,  but  most  deadly 
modern  plague  among  us, —  tuberculosis,  sometimes 
called  the  "  Great  White  Plague."  It  will  in  this 
twelve-month  claim  in  New  York  City  alone  not  less 
than  fifteen  thousand  of  its  people,  in  the  United  States 
not  less  than  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand,  in  the 
world  over  a  million.  And  yet  it  to  a  very  great  ex- 
tent is  an  entirely  preventable  disease.  Social  and 
economic  conditions  far  below  what  they  might  be  are 
to  a  very  great  extent  responsible  for  its  never  dimin- 
ishing prevalence.* 

One  could  dwell  at  length  upon  this  great  "  White 
Plague  "  —  consumption  —  because  its  prevalence  and 
its  non-abatement  are  so  directly  caused  by  social  and 
industrial  conditions  that  the  individual  himself  is 
powerless  to  escape,  and  which  only  a  united  public  ac- 
tion can  end.  There  are  public  spirited  and  earnest 
people  in  some  of  our  states,  however,  who  are  already 
aroused  to  the  importance  of  this  great,  and,  to  a  large 
extent,  unnecessary  evil,  and  who  are  already  begin- 
ning to  put  into  operation  agencies  that  promise  much 
for  its  amelioration.  Much,  however,  must  be  done ; 
and  a  great  part  must  be  along  the  lines  of  better  social 
and  industrial  conditions  under  which  so  many  millions 
of  our  people  live. 

*  Supplementary,  I. 


34  The  Land  of  Lk'ing  Men 

Did  space  permit  we  could  also  consider  at  length 
the  diseases  resulting-  to  workmen  from  various  types 
of  employment,  for  some  are  in  time  inevitably  health- 
breaking,  and  some  are  invariably  most  deadly.  But 
generally  for  those  who  are  stricken  through  these  em- 
ployments, no  provisions  of  any  type  are  made,  and 
when  no  longer  strong  or  capable  the  worker  is  thrown 
out  upon  himself.  Unable  in  his  weakened  or  diseased 
condition  to  find  other  employment,  he  many  times  be- 
comes a-  public  charge.  "  Parasitic  "  employments, 
with  no  further  responsibilities  for  those  whose  health 
they  undermine,  are  all  too  common  in  this  day  of  en- 
lightenment. The  public  must  demand  greater  protection 
from  and  responsibility  on  the  part  of  these.  Mr.  John 
Graham  Brooks,  in  his  admirable  work,  "  The .  Social 
Unrest,"  *  has  spoken  most  strongly  of  that  frightful 
list  of  striken  laborers  that  are  now  thrown  back  upon 
themselves  or  their  families  with  recompense  so  un- 
certain and  niggardly  as  to  shock  the  most  primitive 
sense  of  social  justice.  Speaking  of  what  comes  under 
the  head  of  accident  injuries  in  connection  with  the 
progress  of  German  insurance,  ]\Ir.  Brooks  further 
says :  "  Previous  to  the  accident  insurance  in  Germany 
it  was  thought  that  there  might  be  thirty  or  forty 
thousand  injuries  due  to  machinery  that  would  be 
covered  by  the  insurance.  The  first  investigation 
showed  three  times  this*  number ;  when  the  investiga- 
tion became  more  complete,  six  times  the  number.  .  .  . 
Most  civilized  communities  outside  of  America  have 

*  Macmillan  and  Companj',  New  York  and  London. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  35 

already  made  the  same  ackno\vledgm,ent  by  framing 
new  laws  that  mark  an  era  m  a  juster  social 
legislation." 

Undoubtedly  lack  of  regular  employment,  sickness 
or  weakness,  combined  with  the  receiving  of  a  mere 
living  wage,  which  leaves  no  opportunity  to  meet  any 
emergency  successfully,  is  responsible  for  the  great 
proportion  of  the  poverty  and  resultant  pauperism  that 
is  in  existence  in  our  own  as  well  as  in  so  many  other 
countries  to-day.  The  uncertainty  and  darkness  that 
the  combination  brings  into  the  lives  of  millions  of 
otherwise  strong,  honest,  hard-working,  and  withal  de- 
serving, people,  is  almost  indescribable.  We  make  it 
hard  for  many  a  man  to  be  honest  and  independent  and 
self-respecting,  and  when  with  all  his  magnificent 
struggles  he  eventually  goes  under,  we  throw  the  role 
of  the  criminal  or  the  pauper  upon  him  and  those  de- 
pendent on  him. 

We  have  the  rush  and  strain  in  so  many  lines  of 
work,  the  boom  and  then  depression,  men  rushed  and 
driven  and  then  no  work.  There  is  no  time  for  culture 
and  advancement  while  the  rush  and  strain  is  on,  and 
the  uncertainty  of  existence  —  to  meet  one's  honest  ob- 
ligations, and  many  times  the  search  for  work  when 
unemployment  comes,  leaves  no  time  for  culture  or  ad- 
vancement, or  even  for  the  normal  enjoyment  of  life, 
which  should  be  in  any  enlightened  country  at  least 
the  portion  of  every  endeavor. 

I  think  one  of  the  saddest  and  most  unjust  features 
of  our  present  day  life  is  the  contemplation  of  the 
thousands  of  thousands  who  are  working  from  early 


36  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

to  late  year  after  year  merely  to  get  bread  and  clothing' 
and  shelter  for  the  next  day's  work  —  nothing  more, 
lives  void  of  all  art,  learning,  rest,  or  hope.  Think 
what  a  loss  it  means  to  even  an  average  standard  of 
citizenship.  Think  what  it  means  for  the  future. 
Think  what  a  thing  human  life  on  this  basis  has  be- 
come, compared  to  what  it  might  and  should  be. 

I  have  an  infinite  respect  for  that  great  body  of  labor 
striving  in  the  face  of  such  great  odds  to  remain  dili- 
gent, honest,  self-sustaining,  fighting  continually  to 
retain  their  places  as  self-supporting  members  of  the 
community,  and  to  give  whatever  opportunities  they 
are  capable  of  giving  to  their  children  —  this  vast 
army  of  heroes,  heroes  in  the  common  life,  the  highest 
type  there  is.  Many  of  them,  however,  on  account  of 
sometimes  shabby  clothes  and  a  less  prosperous  ap- 
pearance, are  looked  down  upon  by  many  more  well- 
to-do  and  better  kept,  but  who  in  a  similar  test  would 
fall  far  below  them  in  the  measure  of  heroism. 

There  is  a  very  direct  connectioii  between  uncer- 
tainty of  employment  and  increased  vagrancy  and  in- 
creased crime,  especially  theft  and  those  things  per- 
taining thereto.  This  is  always  noted  in  connection 
with  any  unusual  industrial  depression,  and  also  in 
lesser  degree  in  connection  with  the  closing  down  of 
any  particular  work  or  works.  We  allow  to  be  built 
up  an  economic  and  industrial  system  that  makes  it 
hard  and  next  to  impossible  for  a  man  to  be  honest, 
self-supporting,  and  therefore  self-respecting,  and  then 
])unish  him  for  it. 

iDCveral  years  ago,  the  case  of  a  workman  and  his 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  37 

connection  with  the  Associated  Charities  in  Boston 
came  under  my  observation.  He  was  a  strong,  splen- 
did type  of  man,  driver  of  a  team  in  connection  with 
one  of  the  large  lumber  firms.  One  day  in  handling  a 
load  of  heavy  timbers,  through  some  mischance,  his 
shoulder  was  dislocated  and  he  was  laid  up  for  some 
weeks.  His  family  consisted  of  a  wife  and  three 
children,  one  of  them  a  babe.  They  lived  in  three 
neatly  kept  small  rooms  in  a  section  of  low-priced  tene- 
ments. As  soon  as  his  little  reserve  power  was  ex- 
hausted, in  order  to  keep  above  want,  they  had  to 
apply  for  aid  to  the  Charity  Organization.  When  he 
was  finally  capable  of  resuming  work,  it  was  found 
that  his  place  had  been  filled  by  another.  I  have  known 
this  man  to  get  up  and  be  out  of  his  house  long  before 
light,  and  with  practically  nothing  for  breakfast,  reg- 
ularly day  after  day  for  several  weeks,  in  his  vain 
endeavor  to  find  work.  Wherever  he  could  get  track 
of  any  possibility  of  work,  he  was  there  early  among 
those  seeking  the  same.  He  was  not  a  shiftless  man, 
caring  little  whether  he  had  work  or  not,  but  a  strong, 
sober,  earnest  man,  who  felt  the  responsibility  of  the 
family  dependent  upon  him.  This  weary,  fruitless 
search  for  work,  is  a  tale  that  is  repeated  over  and 
over  every  day  in  any  large  centre. 

Sometime  ago  it  was  my  privilege  to  sit  with  a 
friend,  a  Municipal  Judge  in  the  Borough  of  Brooklyn, 
as  he  despatched  his  daily  round  of  cases.  There  were 
numbers  whose  troubles  could  be  traced  directly  to  a  lack 
of  regular  employment.  Among  them  was  an  unusually 
Strong,  splendid  looking  man,  of  about  middle  age,  a 


38  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

blacksmith  by  trade.  His  work  had  been  chiefly  in 
connection  with  the  handUng  the  large  forge  pieces 
that  form  part  of  the  work  of  various  machine-shops. 
Through  some  shifting  of  forces  —  he  was  not  a  man 
who  drank  —  he  was  thrown  out  of  work.  The  weary, 
fruitless  search  for  work  and  the  increasing  want  — 
notwithstanding  his  splendid  physical  build  he  was  a 
sensitive  man  —  enabled  depression  finally  to  take 
strong  hold  of  him,  and  after  struggling  with  this  for 
some  days  he  finally  one  evening  got  his  bottle  of 
poison  and  quietly  lay  down  on  the  kitchen  floor  to  end 
it  all.  He  was  found  before  the  end  came,  was  resus- 
citated, and  the  next  day  was  taken  before  the  Munic- 
ipal Judge  on  the  charge  of  attempted  suicide.  It  was 
indeed  pathetic  to  see  this  splendid  looking  man,  de- 
jection and  quiet  written  in  every  movement  and  on 
every  feature,  careless  now  as  to  what  disposition 
would  be  made  of  him,  having  no  choice  now  as  to 
whether  it  was  confinement  or  freedom.  Fortunately 
he  was  before  a  Justice  of  unusual  type,  one  who  used 
his  office  primarily  for  the  good  he  could  do  to  that 
weary  and  never  ending  round  of  fellow  creatures  that 
came  before  him  daily.  That  same  day  agencies  were 
put  into  operation  to  help  the  man  find  work  —  the 
only  thing  needed  —  and  thus  restore  him  as  nearly 
as  possible  to  his  family  and  to  his  former  independent 
position. 

How  frequently  men  drop  on  the  streets  of  the  cities 
of  this,  in  many  respects,  great  nation,  from  hunger, 
in  addition  to  that  greater  number  of  men  and  women 
who  suffer  quietly  and  unknown  to  the  world,  in  a 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  39 

country  where  there  is  plenty  for  all  a  thousand  times 
over.  They  prefer  hunger  and  starvation  to  theft  or 
begging,  and  thousands  upon  thousands  prefer  it  to 
becoming  a  pauper.  Such  are  indeed  heroes  of  the 
highest  mould. 

We  must  learn  that  the  duty  of  our  industries  is  not 
done  with  the  payment  of  just  a  living  wage.  Com- 
pensation must  be  adequate  to  enable  something  to  be 
laid  by  for  the  emergency  that  comes  to  every  in- 
dividual and  to  every  family. 

There  is  a  necessary  and  there  is  an  unnecessary 
poverty.  The  former  is  that  that  comes  about  through 
intemperance,  shiftlessness,  laziness,  depravity.  This 
I  suppose  will  always  be  with  us.  There  is  no  power 
that  can  shield  men  or  women  from  the  penalties  or 
the  inevitable  results  of  the  violation  of  natural  and 
moral  laws.  There  is  on  the  other  hand,  and  it  is  un- 
happily the  very  great  portion  of  it  all,  an  unnecessary 
poverty.  The  great  bulk  of  the  vast  amount  of  poverty 
in  the  country  to-day,  as  well  as  that  in  every  other 
country  is  of  this  unnecessary  type.  It  results  through 
no  fault  of  the  individual,  in  fact  through  agencies 
that  the  individual  as  such  cannot  cope  with  and  can- 
not escape.  It  is  due  to  certain  social  and  industrial 
evils  and  wrongs  that  a  truly  great  or  even  self- 
respecting  nation  cannot  continue  to  permit.  We  must 
find  and  put  an  end  to  the  causes  that  deliberately  make 
paupers  out  of  the  citizens  of  a  great  and  free  nation, 
and  then  turn  around  and  take  care  of  them  out  of  the 
public  funds. 

An  industrial  system  that  takes  out  of  a  man  all  the 


40  The  Land  of  Lii'iiii^  Men 

vitality  and  energy  and  good  there  is  in  him  and  then 
throws  him  out  and  onto  the  pubHc  as  a  pubHc  charge, 
is  not  of  a  high  order,  and  as  it  is  not  necessary  it  cer- 
tainly cannot  much  longer  be  permitted.  We  must 
make  provisions  for  old  age.  When  vast  numbers  are 
receiving  merely,  and  still  other  vast  numbers  not  even, 
a  living  wage,  and  can  scarcely  keep  even  with  the 
daily  demands  of  life,  how  then,  broken  and  helpless  — 
many  long  before  their  time — can  they  expect  to  live, 
self-supporting,  and  in  even  the  crudest  form  of  com- 
fort, in  their  later  years.  We  must  learn  from  Ger- 
many and  other  countries,  and  take  up  the  matter  of 
old  age  pensions.  We  must  make  provisions  for  old 
age  and  for  the  helpless  outside  of  pauperism,  this  in 
addition  to  a  fairer  living  wage.  A  noted  writer  has 
recently  said  that  the  whole  matter  resolves  itself  into 
the  matter  of  fair  wages  and  regular  employment. 

Then  too  we  must  stop  killing  as  well  as  injuring  the 
breadwinners  in  such  wholesale  numbers,  or  if  not, 
then  industry  must  be  compelled  to  make  just  and  full 
and  quick  recompense  to  those  that  through  this  agency 
become  dependents.  Prof.  Edward  D.  Jones,  speaking 
of  the  fairer  wage,  says :  "  The  necessity  for  higher 
wages  is  based  upon  the  observation  that,  in  the  pur- 
chase and  sale  of  labor  upon  the  market,  all  the  nec- 
essary and  legitimate  costs  of  producing  labor  are  not 
provided  for  in  the  wages  received.  Such  transactions 
are  not  complete  economically,  and  do  not  meet  the 
claims  of  social  justice.  Fair  wages  must  include  more 
than  enough  to  support  the  laborer  while  working,  and 
must  cover  compensation  for  seasons  of  idleness  due 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  41 

to  sickness,   old   age,   youth,   lack   of   work,   or   other 
causes  beyond  the  control  of  the  laborer." 

We  are  still  considering  the  actual  conditions  that 
exist  in  a  country  supposed  very  great  and  uniformly 
prosperous.  In  the  United  States  to-day  there  are  over 
four  million  paupers. 

The  Charity  Organization  Society  in  New  York 
finds  that  from  43  to  52  per  cent  of  all  applications  for 
aid  need  work  rather  than  relief.  The  United  Hebrew 
Charities  in  the  same  city  say  the  distress  and  poverty 
among  their  people  is  due  mainly  to  the  inability  to 
find  opportunities  to  become  self-supporting.  This 
applies  not  only  to  New  York,  but  equally  well  to 
Chicago  and  to  various  other  cities.  There  is  then  a 
direct  connection  between  irregularity  or  lack  of  em- 
ployment and  pauperism,  the  same  as  there  is  a  very 
direct  connection  between  irregularity  or  lack  of  work 
and  vagrancy.  If  so  large  a  proportion  of  those  ap- 
plying for  aid  need  work  rather  than  relief,  nearly  or 
practically  one  half,  then  it  certainly  is  incumbent 
upon  society  to  provide  a  solution  of  the  problem. 
Want  and  a  lack  of  regular  employment  precede  both 
l)overty  and  vagrancy  more  often  than  they  follow  it. 

There  is  also  a  very  direct  connection  between  want 
and  an  adequate  means  to  supply  it  and  drunkenness. 
It  is  the  cheerless,  dreary  condition  in  men's  lives,  in 
the  lives  of  both  men  and  women,  that  is  responsible 
for  the  great  bulk  of  intemperance  that  we  find.  Under- 
fed, underclothed,  cold  without  sufficient  heat,  no  hope, 
despondency,  this  is  the  chief  road  to  intemperance  and 
degeneracy.   Were  we  to  know  all  the  facts  we  would 


42  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

find  that  drink  precedes  but  rarely.  Poverty  precedes 
more  often  than  it  follows.  The  great  evil  of  intem- 
perance which  is  the  bane  in  the  lives  of  such  vast 
numbers  of  working  people  in  this  country,  as  in  Eng- 
land, and  every  country  where  it  has  reached  similar 
proportions,  is  to  a  vast  extent  due  to  the  dreary  and 
hard  and  underfed  and  hopeless  conditions  in  so  many 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  lives.  Cold  without  sufifi- 
cient  heat,  a  desire  to  get  away  from,  to  forget  the 
dull,  weary  hopelessness.  Wise,  indeed,  was  the 
Bishop  of  the  English  Church  when  he  said,  "  If  I 
lived  in  the  slums  I  should  be  a  drunkard,  too." 

Dr.  Henry  van  Dyke,  preaching  the  baccalaureate 
sermon  at  one  of  our  leading  universities  some  time 
ago,  gave  utterance  to  this  same  great  truth  when  he 
said :  "  There  are  monstrous  evils  and  vices  in  society. 
Let  intemperance  be  for  us  the  type  of  all,  because  so 
many  of  the  others  are  its  children.  Drunkenness  ruins 
more  homes  and  wrecks  more  lives  than  war.  How 
shall  we  oppose  it?  I  do  not  say  that  we  shall  not 
Dass  resolutions  and  make  laws  against  it.  But  I  do 
say  that  we  can  never  really  conquer  the  evil  in  this 
way.  The  stronghold  of  intemperance  lies  in  the 
vacancy  and  despair  of  men's  minds.  The  way  to  at- 
tack it  is  to  make  the  sober  life  beautiful  and  happy 
and  full  of  interest."  But  the  lives  of  this  vast  army 
of  men  and  women  that  we  are  considering,  those  con- 
tinually in  or  continually  face  to  face  with  want,  are 
not  beautiful,  neither  are  they  happy  nor  full  of  in- 
terest.    They  should  be ;     they  could  be. 

Mr.  Arthur  W.  Milbury,  Secretary  of  the  Industrial 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  43 

Christian  Alliance,  has  said:  "  I  have  had  a  long  and 
intimate  personal  experience  with  the  class  of  men  re- 
ferred to,  and  I  give  it  unhesitatingly  as  my  testimony 
that  not  many  men  are  '  lazy  '  in  the  sense  in  which  this 
word  is  commonly  used.  I  have  dealt  with  thousands 
of  such  men  and  have  almost  invariably  found  them 
willing  and  anxious  to  work.  I  know  that  a  great 
many  people  engaged  in  charitable  enterprises  have 
much  to  say  about  lazy  people,  but  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  it  is  not  so  much  laziness  that  is  at  fault  as 
the  efforts  so  many  of  us  make  to  put  square  pegs  in 
round  holes.  All  men  are  not  born  with  the  same 
energy  and  the  same  intelligence,  and  what  might  be 
called  laziness  in  me  might  be  called  superhuman  en- 
ergy in  other  men.  In  this  institution,  we  do  not  put 
at  chopping  wood  or  shovelling  coal,  if  we  can  possibly 
help  it,  the  man  whose  only  occupation  in  life  has  been 
that  of  bookkeeper  or  clerk  and  who  has  never  had 
any  hard  physical  labor.  We  endeavor,  as  far  as  pos- 
sible, to  put  men  at  the  work  they  are  best  fitted  for. 
Perhaps  this  is  one  reason  why  our  experience  leads 
us  not  to  consider  laziness  as  prevalent  a  vice  as  some 
other  people." 

The  conditions  that  surround  the  lives  of  the  children 
of  any  country,  especially  the  play-life,*  constitute  a 
very  great  factor  in  determining  the  immediate  future 
conditions  of  that  country.  In  the  early  days  of  the 
American  nation  the  fields,  and  all  that  this  conveys, 
were  the  playgrounds  of  the  children.     As  the  city  be- 

*  Supplementary,  II. 


44  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

gan  and  i^rew  the  Common  was  given  them  in  place  of 
the  fields ;  this  was  succeeded  many  times  by  the 
small  yard  of  the  home.  But  as  the  cities  have  grown 
and  land  has  become  more  valuable,  and  population 
denser  and  continually  denser,  the  children  have  been 
gradually  pushed  out  into  the  streets,  until  in  Greater 
New  York  for  example,  the  street  and  all  that  that 
means  is  the  chief  playground  for  not  less  than  half  a 
million  children.  This  is  also  true,  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent,  of  certain  portions  of  every  great  city  in  the 
country, —  the  street  with  its  noises  and  all  of  its 
dangers,  its  dust  and  its  dirt,  and  many  times  its  stifling 
atmosphere,  as  well  as  all  of  its  moral  dangers,  is  the 
playground  of  at  least  seven  million  of  our  children 
to-day.  After  saying  that  "  The  younger  criminals 
seem  to  come  almost  exclusively  from  the  worst  tene- 
ment-house districts,"  an  eminent  authority  even  many 
years  ago  gave  before  a  New  York  Legislative  Com- 
mittee, testimony  as  follows :  "  By  far  the  largest 
part,  80  per  cent  at  least,  of  crimes  against  property 
and  against  the  person  are  perpetrated  by  individuals 
who  have  either  lost  connection  with  home  life,  or 
never  had  any,  or  whose  homes  have  ceased  to  be  suf- 
ficiently separate,  decent,  and  desirable  to  afford  what 
was  regarded  as  ordinary  wholesome  influences  of 
home  and  family." 

It  is  the  life  in  the  streets  of  the  large  city  where  the 
needs  of  the  children  seem  to  have  been  so  generally 
forgotten,  that  develops  as  Mr.  Jacob  A.  Riis  has  so 
authoritatively  said,  "  dislike  of  regular  work,  physical 
incapability   of   sustained   effort,   misdirected   love   of 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  45 

adventure,  gambling  propensities,  absence  of  energy, 
and  untrained  will,  carelessness  of  the  happiness  of 
others." 

Such  are  the  baneful  influences  that  surround  the 
lives  of  these  almost  unbelievably  large  numbers  of 
our  quickly  coming  men  and  women,  a  number  so 
large  as  soon  to  constitute  the  determining  factor  in 
the  nation's  life. 

The  number  of  children  not  in  our  schools  is  per- 
haps much  larger  than  the  average  person  has  the 
slightest  conception  of.  Our  modern  life  is  becoming 
so  intense,  and  the  struggle  for  existence  is  becoming, 
especially  in  some  centres,  so  keen  and  so  sharp,  that 
no  one  growing  into  manhood  and  womanhood  can 
afiford  to  enter  upon  the  stage  of  activity  in  anything 
but  a  thoroughly  first-class  and  sound  condition,  both 
mentally  and  physically.  Each  should  have  an  equip- 
ment of  only  the  very  best  in  a  country  supposed  to  be 
among  the  best.  Nevertheless  there  are  at  this  present 
hour  between  a  million  and  a  half  and  two  million 
boys  and  girls  under  fifteen  years  of  age  at  work  in 
our  mills  and  our  mines  and  various  industrial  estab- 
lishments and  works  of  all  types.  At  this  point  space 
does  not  permit  of  any  enumeration  of  the  conditions 
under  which  vast  numbers  of  these  children  of  from 
five  to  fifteen  years  of  age  are  working,  nor  any  de- 
tailed enumeration  of  the  broken  condition  of  so  many 
of  them  so  long  before  their  time,  sometimes  even 
before  they  have  entered  upon  young  manhood  and 
womanhood. 

The  cotton  mills  of  the  South,  many  owned  or  con- 


46  The  Land  of  Lk'ing  Men 

trolled  by  wealthy  Northern  capitalists,  have  of  recent 
years  brought  about  a  condition  of  child  slavery  that 
was  scarcely  surpassed  by  a  similar  condition  in  Eng- 
land during  its  darkest  period  of  child  labor  so  many, 
many  years  ago.  The  greed  for  gain  when  it  once 
takes  possession  of  a  man  is  never  satisfied,  and  the 
only  way  many  times  to  protect  the  helpless  from  the 
brute  is  for  society  itself  to  stretch  forth  its  strong 
mandatory  arm. 

In  addition  to  the  almost  unspeakable  evils  resulting 
to  the  child  himself  and  later  to  the  man  and  woman, 
is  the  competition  that  this  army  of  child  workers 
throws  out  against  adult  labor,  and  especially  is  this 
a  matter  of  no  small  import  when  there  are  con- 
tinually such  large  numbers  of  men  and  women  out 
of  employment  as  we  have  already  noted.  Greater 
profits  is  the  one  and  practically  absolute  cause,  for 
in  this  age  of  modern  machinery  the  children  can 
many  times  be  hired  for  a  third  of  the  man's  normal 
wage. 

In  view  of  the  facts  presented  in  that  much  dis- 
cussed and  very  suggestive  and  valuable  book,  "  The 
Present  Distribution  of  Wealth  in  the  United  States," 
published  sometime  ago,  by  Mr.  Charles  B.  Spahr,  we 
can  scarcely  cease  wondering  that  our  Federal  Bureaus 
have  not  even  before  this  made  an  effort  to  find  the 
present  drift  of  matters  in  this  respect  in  the  country. 
Mr.  Spahr's  findings  revealed  the  fact  that  even  so  far 
back  as  1890,  considerably  over  one-third  of  the  fam- 
ilies in  the  United  States,  or  41  per  cent,  are  entirely 
propertyless :     that  seven-eights  of  the  families  hold 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  47 

but  one-eighth  of  the  national  wealth  :  and  that  on  the 
other  hand,  one  per  cent  of  the  families  own  more 
than  the  entire  remaining  99  per  cent. 

Other  estimates  including  those  of  Mr.  George  K. 
Holmes,  an  expert  statistician  employed  on  the  census, 
r.evealed  facts  of  a  very  similar  nature. 

These  are  indeed  not  only  significant  but  most  por- 
tentous facts,  and  if  the  above  are  the  facts  as  far 
back  as  1890,  they  have  undoubtedly  been  accentuated 
with  great  force  since  then,  for  there  has  been  no 
period  in  our  entire  history  in  which  so  many  great 
private  fortunes  have  been  built  up  or  have  been  added 
so  powerfully  to  as  that  between  1890  and  the  present 
time.  A  well-known  man  in  the  financial  world  in  re- 
viewing some  of  our  present  day  conditions  has  re- 
cently made  a  statement  to  the  effect  that  it  is  only  a 
matter  of  simple  mathematics  to  ascertain  the  day,  and 
that  only  a  few  years  away,  when  ten  men  will  be  prac- 
tically owners  of  the  United  States.  He  has  indeed 
much  basis,  in  view  of  present  conditions  and  the 
present  trend  of  matters,  for  this  statement. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  in  face  of  the  great  and 
unprecedented  growth  of  wealth  in  the  United  States, 
resulting  in  large  measure  from  its  youth  and  won- 
derful natural  resources  and  opportunities,  the  increase 
has  been  so  unequal  that  the  vast  millions  have  flowed 
into  the  pockets  of  the  few,  while  the  few  millions  have 
gone  to  the  lot  of  the  many.  The  rich  have  grown 
richer  at  a  rate  and  to  a  degree  that  is  almost  astound- 
ing, and  while  it  is  not  true  that  the  poor  have  on  the 
whole  grown  poorer,  it  is  true  that  the  increase  going 


48  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

to  their  lot  has  been  so  exceecUngly  small  in  comparison 
—  in  some  cases  not  even  sufficient  to  be  noted  at  all  — 
that  practically  the  same  effect  has  come  about.  In 
other  words  the  increase  in  general  prosperity  and.  of 
those  at  the  upper  end  has  been  out  of  all  proportion 
to  that  of  the  great  laboring  and  middle  class.  The 
masses  of  the  people  are  not  getting  their  just  relative 
increase.  Were  it  not  at  the  risk  of  dealing  too  much 
with  statistics  and  figures,  it  would  be  most  interesting 
to  calculate  and  consider  the  total  amount  of  wealth 
created  each  year  or  each  decade,  and  the  amount  of  it 
that  actually  goes  to  the  great  mass  of  the  producers  of 
that  wealth. 

A  Fabian  Tract  says  that  there  are  about  one  million 
rich  men  in  England  who  do  nothing,  hence  live  on  the 
labor  of  others.  The  vast  tracts  of  land  that  in  great 
estates,  sometimes  even  in  large  cities  (over  600  acres 
within  the  limits  of  London  is  held  by  a  single  in- 
dividual), that  are  held  by  rich  or  titled  families,  and 
thus  kept  away  from  the  people  to  whom  the  land 
should  rightly  belong  or  for  v^^hose  benefit  it  should  be 
used,  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  great  causes  of  the 
great  inequality  of  conditions  in  Great  Britain.  I  have 
passed  partly  by  one  estate  in  North  Britain,  eighteen 
miles  wide  and  some  forty  miles  long.  There  are 
numerous  estates  of  vast  numbers  of  square  miles  each, 
even  comprising  whole  villages  where  no  single 
dweller  owns  the  house  in  which  he  lives,  nor  can  he 
even  drive  a  nail  in  it  without  permission,* 

*  Supplementary,  III. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  49 

The  poverty  and  wretched  conditions  in  London  and 
other  large  centres  in  Great  Britain  is  indeed  very 
great  in  its  proportions,  but  we  in  the  United  States  are 
rapidly  approaching  it  in  many  centres,  and  in  some, 
according  to  all  available  facts  and  statistics,  we  have 
reached  it  already.  Sometime  ago  a  well-known  Eng- 
lish philanthropist  and  sociologist,  who  was  travelling 
in  this  country  studying  the  conditions  of  the  working 
classes,  publicly  declared  while  in  Washington,  as  the 
result  of  his  investigations  that  there  are  worse  places 
in  that  city  than  the  worst  quarters  of  London. 

The  luxury  on  the  one  hand  and  the  poverty  on  the 
other,  —  and  it  has  been  the  history  of  the  world  that 
where  the  former  has  grown  great  the  latter  has  grown 
great  also  and  as  a  consequence,  —  which  we  find  in  the 
American  nation  to-day,  and  within  a  period  so  com- 
paratively short,  is  simply  enormous  in  its  proportions. 

While  in  this  country  we  are  not  laboring  under  the 
caste  system  that  exists  in  England,  and  has  there  be- 
come almost  as  fixed  and  pronounced  as  it  has  been  for 
untold  generations  in  India  for  example,  we  are  already 
feeling  a  similar  bearing  and  power  on  the  part  of  many 
of  the  very  rich,  both  as  families  and  as  individuals, 
and  some  such  state  is  now  as  for  some  time  past  it  has 
been,  in  process  of  rapid  formation  in  this  country. 

Sometime  ago  I  noticed  the  definition  that  an  emi- 
nent writer  gave  to  the  word  loafer,  and  as  nearly  as  I 
can  recall  —  a  loafer  —  one  who  works  not  himself 
but  lives  on  the  work  of  others,  either  as  a  gentleman, 
or  as  a  tramp  or  a  beggar  or  a  pauper  —  both  classes 
are  kept  through  the  support  of  others. 


50  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

The  upper  and  lower  ends  are  borne  by  the  great 
middle  classes, —  and  the  growth  and  increase  of  the 
upper  tends  continually  to  increase  the  number  of  the 
lower.  These  great  extremes  result  primarily  from 
the  unequal  distribution  of  the  profits  resulting  from 
the  handling  of  earth's  products.  This  is  the  reason  of 
the  one  per  cent  of  the  families  owning  already  more 
than  the  remaining  99  per  cent. 

It  is  from  this  that  the  "  smart  "  set  comes,  some- 
times called  the  "  brainless "  set,  sometimes  the 
"  thoughtless."  The  maker  of  the  fortune,  the  father 
or  the  grandfather,  many  times  made  from  the  most 
ordinary  mould,  but  with  an  ability  in  manipulating, 
in  accumulating,  sometimes  with  a  working  knowledge 
of  scarcely  one  of  the  ten  commandments,  was  the 
one  who  did  the  work ;  and  the  descendants  became 
dwellers  in  idleness,  and  worse  than  idleness,  for  the 
old  gentleman  has  helped  them  on  to  the  backs  of  other 
people  and  from  this  position  they  refuse  politely  to 
descend,  and  will  remain  there  imtil  the  people  bring 
about  a  different  set  of  conditions  on  the  one  hand,  or 
until  idleness  and  luxury,  so  many  times  descending 
into  vice,  have  sapped  the  vitality  and  the  common  level 
is  found  again.  It  was  John  Stuart  Mill  who  pointed 
out  the  following  facts : 

"  When  men  talk  of  the  ancient  wealth  of  a  country, 
of  riches  inherited  from  ancestors,  and  similar  expres- 
sions, the  idea  suggested  is,  that  the  riches  so  trans- 
mitted were  produced  long  ago,  at  the  time  when  they 
are  said  to  have  been  first  acquired,  and  that  no  portion 
of  the  capital  of  a  country  was  produced  this  year  ex- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  51 

cept  so  much  as  may  have  been  this  year  added  to  the 
total  amount.     The  fact  is  far  otherwise. 

"  The  greater  part  in  vahie  of  the  wealth  now  exist- 
ing- in  England  has  been  produced  by  human  hands 
within  the  last  twelve  months.  A  very  small  proportion 
indeed  of  that  large  aggregate  was  in  existence  ten 
years  ago ;  of  the  present  productive  capital  of  the 
country  scarcely  any  part,  except  farmhouses  and  fac- 
tories, and  a  few  ships  and  machines,  and  even  these 
would  not  in  most  cases  have  survived  so  long,  if  fresh 
labor  had  not  been  employed  within  that  period  in  put- 
ting them  into  repair. 

"  The  land  subsists,  and  the  land  is  almost  the  only 
thing  that  subsists.  Everything  which  is  produced  per- 
ishes, and  most  things  very  quickly. 

"  Capital  is  kept  in  existence  from  age  to  age,  not  by 
preservation,  but  by  perpetual  reproduction." 

A  great  deal  of  very  bad  sense  and  a  lack  of  discrim- 
inating thought  is  shown  at  the  present  day  in  an  in- 
discriminate vituperation  of  the  rich,  as  if  all  were  of 
the  same  class.  It  is  by  no  means  true.  They  cannot 
be  indiscriminately  classed  together  nor  spoken  of  in 
the  same  category  any  more  than  various  types  of 
business  enterprises,  those  that  though  large  are 
straightforward  and  honorable,  and  those  that  seem 
to  be  the  very  epitome  of  hell  in  their  methods. 

Among  the  rich  are  some  of  the  finest  and  noblest  of 
our  citizenship,  and  most  valuable  in  the  social 
structure.  Moreover,  it  seems  to  me  that  there  should 
be  not  only  no  indiscriminate  vituperation,  hut  none 
at  all.     Whatever  blame  there  is  should  rightly  rest 


52  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

upon  those  sitting  quietly  by  —  ourselves  —  and  al- 
lowing a  system  of  social  and  economic  injustice  and 
inequality  to  be  built  up  that  enables  a  few  to  become 
so  enormously  and  so  drunkenly  rich  that  even  they 
themselves  and  their  descendants  suffer  from  the  ef- 
fects of  it,  and  on  the  other  hand  millions  of  men, 
women,  and  children  are  reduced  to  a  life  of  continual 
poverty  and  misery  through  this  very  inequality  that 
zi'c  permit.  This  in  face  of  the  fact  that  the  demands 
of  the  people  could  be  made  for  an  economic  and  in- 
dustrial justice  in  a  manner  so  convincing  and  so  com- 
pelling that  no  bodies  or  groups  of  men  or  families, 
however  powerful  they  may  be,  however  drunk  with 
gain  and  influence,  or  however  skilled  in  methods  of 
manipulation,  could  do  anything  other  than  listen  to 
and  heed  these  demands. 

Not  hostility  to  the  rich,  a  foolish  as  well  as  dan- 
gerous proceeding,  but  a  fully  prepared  and  determined 
and  never-ending  hostility  to  a  political  and  industrial 
system  that  permits  a  few  to  become  so  excessively 
rich,  and  hence  such  unequal  and  such  rapidly  growing 
dangerous  conditions.  It  is  not  their  fault  but  ours 
if  we  permit  these  conditions  to  continue.  They  are 
doing  only  what  large  numbers  of  those  who  condemn 
them  would  do  under  similar  circumstances. 

It  is  a  beautiful  little  village  of  3,000  people.  The 
public  Common  was  a  joy  and  a  pleasure  to  all ;  rich 
in  flowers,  in  grass,  in  trees,  in  birds  and  song.  Some- 
time ago  several  influential  families  turned  and  now 
pasture  their  cows  in  it.  The  people  through  negli- 
gence permitted  it.     The  owners  of  the  cows  are  now 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  53  , 

using  a  great  abundance  of  very  rich  cream.  But  for 
the  people  the  joy  of  the  Common  is  gone.  Sometime 
the  people  will  awake  and  the  cows  will  be  driven  from 
the  Common  and  forever.  Their  owners  will  never 
take  them  out  of  their  own  accord.  They  havt  grown 
to  love  cream  dearly. 

The  system  is  now  at  fault,  and  must  be  changed 
even  for  the  safety  and  perpetuity  of  the  nation,  as 
well  as  the  welfare  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people. 
As  it  is  now,  the  great  proportion  is  simply  a  grist  for 
the  few. 

We  make  poverty  and  then  bountifully  supply,  or 
attempt  to  supply,  relief  for  it  to  the  sad,  sad  numbers 
who  despite  their  most  diligent  and  heroic  efforts  are 
cast  into  it.  It  is  indeed  a  sort  of  "  benevolent  feudal- 
ism." It  has  been  said,  and  so  truthfully,  that  the 
rich  and  powerful  will  do  anything  for  the  poor  but 
get  off  their  backs. 

The  munificence  of  our  charities  and  relief  works  is 
in  one  sense  a  most  beautiful  feature  of  our  country's 
civilization.  In  another  sense  it  is  one  of  the  most 
horrible  shames,  in  that  it  registers,  and  still  counte- 
nances the  great  mass  of  the  poverty  among  us,  only  a 
small  fraction  of  which  is  necessary.  We  spend  an- 
nually in  charity  and  relief  —  public  and  private  — 
over  two  hundred  million  dollars,  and  the  demands  are 
continually  in  advance  of  the  ways  of  meeting  them. 
The  demand  for  relief  always  keeps  considerable  in 
advance  of  the  supply  —  such  is  the  testimony  of  Prof. 
Amos  G.  Warner  in  his  able  book  "  American 
Charities."     But   with   it   all   we  have   not   yet    fully 


54  The  Laud  of  Living  Men 

learned  the  far  greater  economy  of  prevention  over 
cure,  or  attempted  cure,  in  addition  to  the  frightful 
amount  of  suffering  and  misery  and  degradation  that 
such  a  system  brings  to  such  vast  numbers.  The  fol- 
lowing l^artial  illustration  may  be  suggestive. 

i\  few  years  ago  in  Glasgow  there  existed  a  frightful 
death  rate  among  the  people  of  a  certain  portion  of  the 
city.  The  municipal  authorities,  more  quick  to  act  for 
the  people  than  in  similar  cases  among  us,  examined 
into  the  conditions,  found  the  causes,  and  demolished 
the  houses  in  that  immediate  section  and  erected  new 
tenements  to  take  their  places.  The  death  rate  was  re- 
duced from  fifty-five  per  thousand  to  a  little  over  four- 
teen per  thousand.  A  slum  immediately  adjoining 
still  had  a  death  rate  of  fifty-three  per  thousand.  Here 
stood  two  groups  of  dwellings  housing  practically  the 
same  class  of  people,  one  having  a  death  rate  of  a  little 
over  fourteen  to  every  thousand  and  the  other  a  death 
rate  almost  four  times  as  great.  But  for  this  common- 
sense  action,  this  frightful  and  unnecessary  death  rate 
would  have  kept  up  year  after  year,  and  charity  and 
relief  would  have  been  taxed  both  in  money  and  in 
energy  to  a  far  greater  extent  than  the  amounts  of 
money  and  energy  that  were  required  to  make  the  sur- 
roundings of  these  people  decent,  and  as  becomes  a 
civilized  community. 

The  following  paragraphs  are  filled  with  truth  con- 
cerning this  matter  of  charity  and  relief :  "  In  its  ori- 
gin charity  sprang  from  the  noblest  feeling  —  that 
sympathy  with  others  which  prompts  us  to  relieve  suf- 
fering.    The  im])ulse  to  feed  the  hungry,  clothe  the 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  55 

naked  and  shelter  the  homeless,  is  wholly  creditable. 
But  the  modern  machinery  of  public  and  private 
charities,  supported  by  taxation  or  by  private  funds 
given  out  of  a  sense  of  obligation,  is  abominable. 

"  All  statistics  of  charitable  organizations  show  that 
the  real  trouble  with  the  great  majority  of  the  people 
who  seek  relief,  is  lack  of  work.  At  least  75  per  cent 
of  those  who  are  assisted  by  private  charity  or  public 
institutions  are  able  and  willing  to  work,  if  only  they 
could  find  employment.  And  the  remaining  25  per 
cent,  including  the  children,  the  sick,  etc.,  is  indirectly 
the  result  of  the  same  conditions  of  lack  of  work  or 
low  wages.  Because  of  inability  on  the  part  of  parents 
to  make  provision  for  their  children,  the  orphan 
asylums  and  industrial  homes  are  overflowing.  Be- 
cause of  distress  brought  on  by  insufficient  nourish- 
ment, or  by  living  in  unhealthy  tenements,  the  hospitals 
are  crowded.  Because  the  sick  are  poor  they  must  look 
for  free  medical  attendance  instead  of  employing  a 
physician.  So  with  practically  all  the  objects  of 
charity.  Directly  or  indirectly  the  need  for  help  arises 
from  the  fact  that  workers  are  not  able  to  support 
themselves  by  their  labor.  .  .  .  Those  who  have 
worked  the  hardest  at  charities  know  how  hopelessly 
inefficient  and  insufficient  they  are.  Charity  fails,  and 
always  must  fail  to  accomplish  its  aims,  because  it 
concerns  itself  with  surface  symptoms  and  not  with 
fundamental  causes. 

"Since  charity  cannot  stop  anyone  from  shutting 
people  out  of  work,  it  cannot  do  anything  to  alleviate 
or  abolish  the  evils  arising  from  want  of  work.    When 


56  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

it  pretends  to  do  so.  it  is  a  fraud  used  to  soothe  the 
victims  of  partisan  laws  into  silence. 

"  The  rich  are  generally  well  aware  of  all  this  —  so 
they  charge  their  own  indifference  to  their  God,  and 
say  that  Jesus  said,  '  Tlie  poor  ye  shall  have  always 
with  you.'  Jesus  never  said  anything  of  the  sort.  He 
said,  *  The  poor  ye  have  with  you  always  and  when- 
soever ye  will  ye  may  do  them  good'  (Mark  14,  7)  ; 
that  is,  may  abolish  their  poverty  and  the  causes  of  it, 
too.  I  commend  to  those  religious  persons  the  last 
four  verses  of  Revelation."  * 

And  while  I  think  the  author  of  these  paragraphs 
is  in  the  main  right,  I  think  he  speaks  somewhat  too 
generally  in  regard  to  the  motives  that  actuate  many 
rich  people  who  give  to  charity,  for  many  we  know  are 
animated  by  motives  of  the  highest  and  noblest  type. 
And  until  they  can  see  their  way  to  spend  a  larger 
portion  of  their  means  and  energy  in  a  far  wiser  and 
more  effective  way  —  in  an  endeavor  to  bring  about 
more  just  and  equitable  conditions  in  the  social  and 
industrial  life  of  the  country,  may  they  not  cease  the 
good  work  they  are  doing. 

Then  as  to  the  practical  effects  of  charity  upon 
those  who  are  its  recipients,  the  following  testimony 
of  Mrs.  Josephine  Shaw  Lowell,  is  quite  thoroughly 
in  keeping  with  the  testimony  of  practically  all  exper- 
ienced workers  and  observers  in  this  field  of  charity. 
Mrs.  Lowell  says,  "  Whatever  exception  you  may  have 
encountered,  you  know  that  the  rule  is  that  those  who 

*  From  "  Free  America,"  by  Bolton  Hall. 


The  Land  of  Living'  Men  57 

receive  relief  are  or  soon  become  idle,  intemperate, 
untruthful,  vicious,  or  at  least  quite  shiftless  and  im- 
provident. You  know  that  the  more  relief  they  have 
as  a  rule,  the  more  they  need.  You  know  that  it  is  de- 
structive to  energy  and  industry,  and  that  the  taint 
passes  from  generation  to  generation,  and  that  a  pauper 
family  is  more  hopeless  to  reform  than  a  criminal 
family." 

Our  efforts  must  be  to  deal  not  so  much  with  charity 
and  relief,  as  with  the  causes  that  make  such  vast 
amounts  of  charity  and  relief  necessary.  It  is  simply 
astounding,  our  willingness  to  let  things  go  on  as  they 
are  and  then  care  for  the  unfortunate  millions  who 
fall  in  their  struggles  against  such  tremendous  odds. 

We  allow  our  municipal  and  state  representatives. — 
who  thereby  become  representatives  of  the  great 
moneyed  and  corporate  interests  —  to  give  over  fran- 
chises for  the  use  of  great  public  utilities  that  should  be 
used  for  the  people  and  with  millions  upon  millions 
in  value,  to  the  personal  and  private  uses  of  little 
groups  of  men,  without  asking  in  most  cases  even  a 
dollar  in  compensation  and  then  we  tamely  accept  poor 
service,  high  charges,  many  times  disgusting  and  al- 
most inhuman  treatment.  They  give  it.  We  accept 
it.  W'e  accept  it  even  as  if  we  did  not  know  better  and 
as  if  it  were  something  we  had  to  submit  to,  rather 
than  because  we  choose  to.  Thus  we  make  them  in- 
creasingly rich  and  daring  and  unscrupulous,  so  that 
out  of  their  enormous  profits,  wrung  from  the  con- 
stantly increasing  needs  of  the  people,  they  are  enabled 
to  build  up  great  corruption  funds,  to  maintain  strong 


58  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

and  powerful  lobbies  to  influence  all  legislation  in  their 
favor,  to  kill  all  that  may  be  adverse,  in  other  words 
all  that  may  be  for  the  interests  of  the  people.  In  this 
way  they  have  gone  on  and  on,  getting  many  times  by 
direct  purchase  of  the  votes  of  the  members  of  our  city 
councils  and  of  legislators,  additional  properties  that 
by  .all  laws  of  common-sense  as  well  as  the  most  crude 
laws  of  justice,  should  belong  to,  should  be  managed 
by  and  for  the  people.  Some  day,  and  before  long 
now,  we  will  wonder  at  the  asinine  qualities  that  we 
American  people  have  displayed  in  this  respect. 

Little  wonder  then  that  certain  business  and  prop- 
ertied classes  have  grabbed  and  are  still  grabbing 
everything  in  sight,  as  well  as  appropriating  to  them- 
selves the  machinery  of  government.  They  will  con- 
tinue to  do  this  as  long  as  the  people  permit  it. 

These  agencies,  eminently  "  respectable,"  though 
many  times  rheumatic  and  gouty,  whence  spring  the 
greatest  forces  of  corruption  in  the  country,  are  al- 
ready gnawing  at  the  very  vitals  of  the  nation's  wel- 
fare, as  well  as  at  its  safety  and  perpetuity.  The  nation 
of  freemen  is  already  in  danger.  The  mutterings  of 
the  great  discontent  are  clearly  audible  even  to  the 
most  indifferent  and  unconcerned.  Of  these  all  think- 
ing men  and  women  are  most  keenly  aware.  The 
nation  cannot  remain  in  safety,  but  must  retrograde 
and  this  splendid  example  of  free  institutions  and  free 
men  and  women  must  be  counted  abortive  unless  a 
movement  and  a  very  pronounced  and  determined  and 
unceasing  movement  is  quickly  made  to  beat  back  the 
advance  of  the  sleek,  cunning,   conscienceless  bands, 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  59 

whose  motto  is  greed  and  whose  method  is  corruption. 
It  is  carrying  a  bhght,  withering  and  deadening  to  free 
institutions,  into  every  quarter  that  it  touches. 

"  If  the  King  of  Mexico  has  any  gold,"  said  Cortez, 
as  he  and  his  followers  stood  clamoring  at  the  gates  of 
Montezuma,  "  let  him  send  it  out  to  us.  For  I  and 
my  companions  have  a  disease  of  the  heart  which  is 
cured  by  gold." 

Sometime  ago  that  very  keen  observer,  matchless 
thinker,  and  great  lover  of  justice  and  of  men,  hence, 
of  his  country's  welfare,  Henry  George,  gave  utterance 
to  the  following  most  significant  words :  * 

"  The  evils  arising  from  the  unjust  and  unequal  dis- 
tribution of  wealth,  which  are  becoming  more  and 
more  apparent  as  modern  civilization  goes  on,  are  not 
incidents  of  progress,  but  tendencies  which  must  bring 
progress  to  a  halt.    .    .    . 

"  The  poverty  which  in  the  midst  of  abundance 
pinches  and  imbrutes  men,  and  all  the  manifold  evils 
which  flow  from  it,  spring  from  a  denial  of  justice. 
In  permitting  the  monopolization  of  the  opportunities 
which  nature  freely  offers  to  all,  we  have  ignored  the 
fundamental  law  of  justice —  for,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 
when  we  view  things  upon  a  large  scale,  justice  seems 
to  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  universe.  But  by  sweep- 
ing away  this  injustice  and  asserting  the  rights  of  all 
men  to  natural  opportunities,  we  shall  conform  our- 
selves to  the  law  —  we  shall  remove  the  cause  of  un- 
natural  inequality    in   the   distribution   of   wealth   and 

*"  Progress  and  Poverty,"  p.  541    (1900), 


6o  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

power,  .  .  .  substitute  political  strength  for  political 
weakness ;  and  make  tyranny  and  anarchy  impossible. 
.  .  .  Our  primary  social  adjustment  is  a  denial  of 
justice.  ...  It  is  this  that  turns  the  blessings  of 
material  progress  into  a  curse.  It  is  this  that  crowds 
human  beings  into  noisome  cellars  and  squalid  tene- 
ment-houses ;  that  fills  prisons  and  brothels ;  that 
goads  men  with  want  and  consumes  them  with  greed ; 
that  robs  women  of  the  grace  and  beauty  of  perfect 
womanhood ;  that  takes  from  little  children  the  joy 
and  innocence  of  life's  morning. 

"  Civilization  so  based  cannot  continue.  The  eternal 
laws  of  the  universe  forbid  it.  Ruins  of  dead  empires 
testify,  and  the  witness  that  is  in  every  soul  answers, 
that  it  cannot  be.  It  is  something  grander  than  Benev- 
olence, something  more  august  than  Charity  —  it  is 
Justice  herself  that  demands  of  us  to  right  this  wrong. 
Justice  that  will  not  be  denied ;  that  cannot  be  put  off 
—  Justice  that  with  the  scales  carries  the  sword." 

The  following  is  a  type  of  recent  independent  pulpit 
utterance.  Speaking  first  of  the  enormous  sums  ex- 
pended annually  in  charity  in  the  United  States  it 
continues : 

"  This  colossal  sum  is  alx)ut  equally  divided  among 
public  relief,  private  giving  and  the  charities  of  the 
churches.  How  much  good  does  it  do?  Is  it  merely 
an  anaesthetic  to  benumb  the  poor,  lest  they  cry  too 
loud  ?  Can  wisdom  and  virtue  eliminate  the  conditions 
that  make  charity  necessary? 

"The  true  philanthropist  is  the  good  steward  —  the 
man  who  labors,  plans,  executes  the  honorable  business 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  6l 

enterprises  of  this  world.  He  who  opens  the  doors 
of  steady  employment,  pays  an  honest,  living  wage,  by 
his  foresight  and  skill  frustrates  '  panics,'  *  depres- 
sions '  —  this  is  the  true  philanthropist.  His  business 
enterprises  are  a  blessing  to  the  community. 

"  Then,  again,  there  are  those  whom  Jesus  lashes 
like  scorpions  —  men  who  lay  burdens  on  men's 
shoulders  grievous  to  be  borne,  and  do  not  as  much  as 
touch  them  with  their  little  finger !  There  are  those 
who,  having  a  giant's  strength,  are  using  it  like  a 
tyrant  —  promoting  monopolies  that  oppress  the  peo- 
ple, controlling  the  necessities  of  life  —  beef,  sugar, 
oil,  coal  —  and  thus  use  their  business  positions  as  did 
the  old  barons  their  castles  —  places  for  plunder.  This 
kind  of  social  wrong  makes  poverty  and  prepares  for 
social  revolution.  Jesus  commends  justice  to  all  such. 
If  parasites  and  plunderers  were  abolished,  there 
would  be  very  little  need  of  philanthropy." 

Said  a  well-known  Bishop  at  a  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce dinner  recently,  at  which  many  prominent  mil- 
lionaires were  seated :  "  The  people,  the  great  com- 
mon people,  are  suspicious  that  some  great  corporations 
and  masses  of  wealth  are  protected,  or  their  interests 
advanced  in  ways  that  are  inconsistent  with  the  rights 
of  the  people. 

"  They  may  have  no  material  grounds  for  their 
suspicions,  but  they  are  suspicious,  and  so  are  many 
of  you. 

"  I  am  not  so  afraid  of  the  rich  man  in  politics  as  I 
am  of  the  poor  and  weak  man  in  politics,  and  the  rich 
man  outside. 


62  The  Laud  of  Lii'ing  Men 

"  Civilization  cannot  go  on  where  there  is  mutual 
suspicion,  and  prosperity  cannot  go  on  long  while  the 
people  feel  or  think  that  the  reverence  for  law  by 
which  property  is  safeguarded  is  not  upheld. 

"  The  massing  of  great  wealth  in  corporations  has 
come  to  stay,  but  neither  our  sympathies,  nor  the  risk 
to  great  properties,  nor  the  curtailment  or  loss  of  our 
properties  can  reconcile  us  to  any  dallying  with  the 
rights  and  liberties  of  the  people." 

We  have  dwelt  at  great  length  upon  the  dark  side  of 
the  picture,  because  it  is  so  essential  that  we  see  this 
side  fully  and  that  we  see  it  at  once.  But  there  is  an- 
other side,  and  that  not  without  a  great  deal  of  bright- 
ness. Were  we  in  the  condition  of  the  people  of  Rus- 
sia up  to  the  present  time  for  example  —  with  scarcely 
a  voice  in  the  afifairs  of  government  —  then  we  should 
indeed  be  in  a  bad  way.  With  the  forces  we  have  been 
considering  already  so  fully  intrenched  and  so  skilled 
in  their  methods,  there  would  indeed  be  no  hope.  But 
the  battles  for  ]:)olitical  emancipation  were  waged  and 
won,  as  King  John  and  others,  were  they  living,  would 
so  vividly  recall,  many  years  ago.  We  are  a  body  of 
freemen  with  ])olitical  rights,  and  the  final  deciders  of 
what  the  conditions  in  the  nation  shall  be.  This  gives 
us  our  hope,  and  our  power.  With  this  we  can  gain 
and  we  shall  gain,  industrial  and  ccououiic  freedom, 
justice,  and  equality.  This  is  the  power  with  which  we 
shall  drive  to  the  background,  the  forces  that  have 
licen  making  a  byword  of  freedom,  equality  and 
justice. 

We  have  cause  to  be  grateful  by  virtue  of  the  new- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  63 

ness  and  power  of  the  country.  What  has  been  almost 
the  cause  of  our  undoing  shall  yet  be  the  means  by 
which  we  shall  be  saved.  We  have  political  freedom. 
We  have  full  religious  freedom,  full  independence  of 
Church  and  State.  We  are  free  from  the  caste  systems 
that  constitute  the  bane  of  so  many  old  world  countries. 
We  have  it  growing  among  us,  but  it  is  not  fixed  and 
can  yet  be  broken  by  an  aroused  and  determined  peo- 
ple. Our  reputation  is  somewhat  sullied  but  in  the 
main  yet  good.  Labor  is  uniting,  learning,  growing ; 
self-seeking  and  unscrupulous  leaders  are  being  dis- 
covered and  thrown  out.  We  have  an  educational  sys- 
tem that  is  splendid  in  its  quality,  and  that  can  yet  be 
made  even  of  more  value  and  to  include  all,  even  those 
that  need  it  most,  within  its  scope. 

The  masses  of  the  people  of  all  types  are  becoming 
profoundly  dissatisfied  with  present  conditions.  They 
are  inquiring  into  their  causes,  and  where  this  is,  there 
is  hope.     It  tells  also  much  of  the  future  outcome. 

And  just  as  soon  as  sufficient  numbers  of  our  people 
take  enough  interest  in  the  public  welfare, —  which 
means  always  their  own  welfare  to  a  far  greater  degree 
than  many  are  given  to  realize,  and  thereby  become 
conversant  with  the  actual  conditions  that  are  fast  crys- 
tallizing about  us  and  the  agencies  that  are  at  work 
in  their  sly  and  subtle  manner  bringing  them  about, 
then  the  forces  will  be  engendered  that  will  take  the 
Republic  to  that  eminent  and  true  position,  that  by  the 
grace  of  God  and  the  awakened  common-sense  of  the 
people,  we  believe  it  shall  yet  attain. 


Ill 

A    CERTAIN  INEVITABLE  LAW   THAT  DEALS 
WITH  NATIONS  AND  WITH   THEIR  PEOPLE 

fv^j^M  ^^^^  ^^^^  ^  strange  way  of  dealing  with 
''  •'-■-^^~*  nations  and  with  men.  Its  great  clock 
ticks  unerringly  on.  It  seems,  in  a  sense, 
%,  to  be  merely  the  sentinel  of  a  great  and 
immutable  system  of  Law. 

When  the  nation  gets  sufficiently  sick  and  diseased 
it  dies  as  does  the  individual.  Its  hour  is  struck  oflf 
with  an  unerring  precision.  From  that  instant  the  pro- 
cess of  disintegration  sets  in  to  crumble  and  consume 
the  body,  the  structure  that  so  shortly  before  held  the 
spirit. 

It  would  be  useless  and  indeed  foolish  to  say  that 
there  seem  to  be  great  immutable  laws  that  govern  and 
that  determine  the  life,  the  ways,  the  fate  of  nations. 
If  history  means  anything  it  means  this,  and  he  who 
will  may  read.  These  same  laws  exist  to-day  and  as 
has  occurred  will  occur  again  under  like  or  similar 
conditions. 

So  clearly  has  history  written  her  pages  that  he  who 
will  may  go  at  once  to  her  oft  repeated  forms,  and  read 
with  a  quickness  and  clearness  that  no  man  can  mis- 
understand. It  is  always  in  substance  —  that  great 
privilege   and    wealth   and   oppression   have   been   the 

64 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  65 

cause  of  the  gradual  undermining  and  the  final  fall 
and  disintegration  of  all  the  earlier  states  that  have 
flourished  and  that  have  passed.  They  failed  to  realize 
the  immutability  and  the  precision  of  the  laws  that 
govern  men  and  nations.  Moreover,  no  nation  or  no 
man  has  ever  been  rich  enough  or  powerful  enough  to 
change  or  to  escape  the  accuracy  of  their  workings. 
There  are  those  who  thought  it,  and  for  a  time  their 
efforts  have  seemed  to  be  successful,  but  at  the  right 
moment  they  have  been  crushed  and  powdered,  even 
as  the  rock  has  crushed  and  has  powdered  the  shell  of 
the  egg;  and  as  long  as  time  endures  this  story  will 
be  repeated  in  the  life  of  every  nation  and  every  in- 
dividual that  does  not  stop  to  learn  the  writing. 

"  Every  civilization,"  said  the  late  Henry  George, 
"  that  has  been  overwhelmed  by  barbarians  has  really 
perished  from  internal  decay."  Elaborating  upon  this, 
he  has  said :  "  He  would  have  been  a  rash  man  who, 
when  Augustus  was  changing  the  Rome  of  brick  to 
the  Rome  of  marble,  when  wealth  was  augmenting  and 
magnificence  increasing,  when  victorious  legions  were 
extending  the  frontier,  when  manners  were  becoming 
more  refined,  language  more  polished,  and  literature 
rising  to  higher  splendors  —  he  would  have  been  a 
rash  man  who  then  would  have  said  that  Rome  was 
entering  her  decline.    Yet  such  was  the  case. 

"  And  whoever  will  look  may  see  that,  though  our 
civilization  is  apparently  advancing  with  greater  rap- 
idity than  ever,  the  same  cause  which  turned  Roman 
progress  into  retrogression  is  operating  now. 

"  What    has    destroyed    every    previous    civilization 


66  The  Land  of  Lwing  Men 

has  been  the  tendency  to  the  unequal  distribution  of 
wealth  and  power.  This  same  tendency,  operating 
with  increasing  force,  is  observable  in  our  cilivization 
to-day.  .  .  . 

"  To  turn  a  republican  government  into  a  despotism 
the  basest  and  most  brutal,  it  is  not  necessary  formally 
to  change  its  constitution  or  abandon  popular  elec- 
tions. It  was  centuries  after  Csesar,  before  the  ab- 
solute master  of  the  Roman  world  pretended  to  rule 
other  than  by  authority  of  a  Senate,  that  trembled  be- 
fore him.    .    .    . 

"  Whence  shall  come  the  new  barbarians  ?  Go 
through  the  squalid  quarters  of  great  cities,  and  you 
may  see,  even  now,  their  gathering  hordes !  How  shall 
learning  perish?  Men  will  cease  to  read,  and  books 
will  kindle  fires  and  be  turned  into  cartridges! 

"  Everywhere  the  increasing  intensity  of  the  strug- 
gle to  live,  the  increasing  necessity  for  straining  every 
nerve  to  prevent  being  thrown  down  and  trodden  under 
foot  in  the  scramble  for  wealth,  is  draining  the  forces 
which  gain  and  maintain  improvements.   .    .    . 

"  But  as  sure  as  the  turning  tide  must  soon  run  full 
ebb ;  as  sure  as  the  declining  sun  must  bring  darkness, 
so  sure  is  it,  that  though  knowledge  yet  increases  and 
invention  marches  on,  and  new  states  are  being  settled, 
and  cities  still  expand,  yet  civilization  has  begun  to 
wane  when,  in  proportion  to  population,  we  must 
build  more  and  more  prisons,  more  and  more  alms- 
houses, more  and  more  insane  asylums.  It  is  not  from 
top  to  bottom  that  societies  die ;  it  is  from  bottom  to 
top. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  67 

"  But  there  are  evidences  far  more  palpable  than  any 
that  can  be  given  by  statistics,  of  tendencies  to  the  ebb 
of  civilization.  There  is  a  vague  but  general  feeling  of 
disappointment ;  an  increased  bitterness  among  the 
working  classes ;  a  wide-spread  feeling  of  unrest  and 
brooding  revolution.  .  .  .  What  change  may  come, 
no  mortal  man  can  tell,  but  that  some  great  change 
must  come,  thoughtful  men  begin  to  feel.  The  civ- 
ilized world  is  trembling  on  the  verge  of  a  great  move- 
ment. Either  it  must  be  a  leap  upward,  which  will 
open  the  way  to  advances  yet  undreamed  of,  or  it  must 
be  a  plunge  downward,  which  will  carry  us  back  to- 
wards barbarism." 

That  very  careful  and  able  philosopher  and  econ- 
omist. Professor  Lange,  has  said :  "  We  may  show  a 
hundred  times  that  with  the  success  of  speculation  and 
great  capitalists  the  position  of  everybody  else,  step  by 
step,  improves  ;  but  so  long  as  it  is  true  that  with  every 
step  of  this  improvement  the  difference  in  the  position 
of  individuals  and  in  the  means  for  further  advance- 
ment also  grows,  so  long  will  each  step  of  this  move- 
riient  lead  towards  a  turning  point  where  the  wealth 
and  power  of  individuals  break  down  all  the  barriers 
of  law  and  morals  and  a  degraded  proletariat  serves  as 
a  football  to  the  passions  of  the  few,  until  at  last  every- 
thing ends  in  a  social  earthquake  which  swallows  up 
the  artificial  edifice  of  one-sided  and  selfish  interests. 
.  .  -.  The  state  becomes  venal.  The  hopelessly  poor 
will  just  as  easily  hate  the  law  as  the  over-rich  despise 
it.  Sparta  perished  when  the  whole  land  of  the  country 
belonged  to  a  hundred  families;    Rome,  when  a  pro- 


68  The  Laud  of  Lwing  Men 

letariat  of  millions  stood  opposed  to  a  few  thousands 
of  proprietors,  whose  resources  were  so  enormous  that 
Crassus  considered  no  one  rich  who  could  not  maintain 
an  army  at  his  own  expense.  ...  In  mediseval  Italy 
also  popular  freedom  was  lost  through  a  moneyed  ol- 
igarchy and  a  proletariat.  ...  It  is  characteristic 
that  in  Florence  the  richest  banker  finally  becomes  an 
unlimited  despot,  and  that  contemporaneously  in  Genoa 
the  Bank  of  St.  George  in  a  measure  absorbed  the 
state." 

Again  he  says :  "  The  present  state  of  things  has 
been  frequently  compared  with  that  of  the  ancient 
world  before  its  dissolution,  and  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  significant  analogies  present  themselves.  We  have 
the  immoderate  growth  of  riches,  we  have  the  pro- 
letariat, we  have  the  decay  of  morals  and  religion; 
the  present  forms  of  government  all  have  their  ex- 
istence threatened,  and  the  belief  in  a  coming  general 
and  mighty  revolution  is  widely  spread  and  deeply 
rooted." 

Said  Emerson :  "  As  long  as  our  civilization  is  one 
of  property,  of  fences,  of  exclusiveness,  it  will  be 
mocked  by  delusions.  Our  riches  will  leave  us  sick, 
there  will  be  bitterness  in  our  laughter,  and  our  wine 
will  burn  our  mouth.  Only  that  good  profits  which 
we  can  taste  with  all  doors  open  and  which  serves 
all  men." 

The  eminent  economist.  Professor  Smart,  of  Glas- 
gow, makes  a  most  suggestive  statement  in  the  fol- 
lowing :  "  But  when  machinery  is  replacing  man  and 
doing  the  heavy  work  of  industry,  it  is  time  to  get  rid 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  69 

of  that  ancient  prejudice  that  man  must  work  ten  hours 
a  day  to  keep  the  world  up  to  the  level  of  the  comfort 
it  has  attained.  Possibly,  if  we  clear  our  minds  of 
cant,  we  may  see  that  the  reason  why  we  still  wish  the 
laborer  to  work  ten  hours  a  day  is  that  we,  the  com- 
fortable classes,  may  go  on  receiving  the  lion's  share 
of  the  wealth  these  machines,  iron  and  human,  are 
turning  out." 

It  is  the  great  common  people  that  has  made  and 
that  has  been  the  backbone  of  every  nation,  and  as 
long  as  its  interests  are  guarded  and  as  long  as  the 
tendency  is  towards  an  ever  greater  equality  of  oppor- 
tunities for  all,  so  long  is  a  nation  safe.  But  as  soon 
as  extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty  begin  to  manifest 
themselves,  and  privilege  grows,  resulting  in  still 
greater  inequality  in  the  distribution  of  wealth  and 
power,  that  moment  the  destructive  force  begins  its 
work  —  a  force  that  grows  by  what  it  feeds  upon,  an 
evil  that  will  never  correct  itself,  and  that,  unless  it 
be  checked  by  the  great  common  people,  will  carry 
the  nation  to  destruction.  Oppression  and  evil  is  its 
own  destroyer. 

It  is  the  laborer  with  his  vine-clad  cottage,  and  suf- 
ficient of  those  things  that  make  for  peace  and  happi- 
ness and  content  in  the  life  of  a  normal  human  being, 
it  is  a  uniformly  prosperous  common  people,  that  con- 
stitutes the  really  great  nation,  and  not  a  few  castles 
with  their  hordes  of  hirelings  about  them. 

In  addition  to  those  nations  that  have  been  men- 
tioned that  have  flourished,  that  have  grown  great 
and  that  have  declined,  we  might  mention  still  nation 


70  The  Land  of  Lwing  Men 

after  nation.  We  mig-ht  go  back  to  Egypt,  to  Assyria, 
to  Babvlon,  and  to  tlie  other  earlier  civilizations,  but 
we  find  the  same  cause  in  all.  The  law  is  immutable 
in  its  workings.  .Absolute,  seems  to  be  the  word.  The 
larger  Justice  will  not  be  denied.  She  may  seem  to 
delay,  she  may  seem  even  at  times  to  take  no  account, 
but  in  her  own  good  way  and  time  she  strikes,  and 
when  she  strikes  it  is  with  a  terrible  vengeance.  As  she 
is  with  nations,  so  is  she  also  with  men. 

How  can  we  hope  then  that  this  civilization,  this 
nation  shall  escape,  any  more  than  those  that  in  their 
day  were  as  great,  as  proud  and  apparently  enduring, 
if  by  common  consent  the  same  forces  are  at  work 
that  in  time  spelled  destruction  to  those  that  have  pre- 
ceded us? 


IV 

AS  TO  GOVERNMENT  —  SOMETHING  THAT  CAN 
NEVER  BE  APART  FROM  THE  PEOPLE  EXCEPT 
TO  THEIR  GREAT  PERSONAL  LOSS,  AND  THEIR 
ULTIMATE  DESTRUCTION 

(^^^■/^^-^  HERE  have  been  many  able  disquisitions 
I  ^ib^tif  °"  ^^^  theory  and  the  functions  of  Gov- 
'^^l^-^;'  ernment,  and  it  would  be  interesting^  did 
^«Ai;i4fe  space  permit,  to  examine  in  detail  nito 
some  of  the  best  of  these.  Much,  however,  that  has 
been  said,  though  it  might  have  pertained  to  a  greater 
or  less  extent  to  the  time  or  times  in  which  it  was  said, 
does  not  pertain  to  our  present  time.  It  is  the  same 
with  this  as  with  a  great  deal  of  the  earlier  theological 
discussions,  vast  amounts  of  which  have  proved  to  be 
so  inconsequential  that  we  pay  no  attention  to  them 
at  present  and  find  that  they  have  been  of  value  only 
in  a  single  respect  —  in  that  they  have  helped  lead 
the  way  to  the  few  real  things  that  we  are  finding 
to-day  constitute  the  basis  of  the  true  religion. 

It  is  also  evident  that  a  theory  of  government  that 
pertained  to  us  Saxon  people,  say  two  hundred  or 
three  hundred  years  ago,  and  fitted  the  degree  of  evo- 
lution and  life  we  had  attained  to  then,  is  not  a  theory 
that  would  pertain  to  us,  or  that  we  would  even  for  an 
instant  think  of  accepting  in  total  at  the  present  time. 

71 


^2  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

It  can  also  be  truthfully  said  that  for  a  thinking, 
growing,  aspiring  people,  some  of  the  methods  and 
principles  in  vogue  in  our  own  nation  even  fifty  years 
ago  we  cannot,  we  should  not,  and  as  evidences  on 
every  hand  indicate,  we  no  longer  honour  nor  do  we 
countenance  in  the  year  1910.  A  growing,  progressive 
life  demands  that  we  keep  ourselves  up  to  the  mark 
that  is  the  truth  of  to-day,  and  that  we  be  careful  that 
old  forms  do  not  crystallize  about  us  either  in  religion 
or  in  government,  forms  that  will  tend  to  make  us  sat- 
isfied with  anything  but  the  vivid,  vital  truth  that  will 
reveal  itself  to  us  to-day  and  to-morrow  and  to- 
morrow, if  we  are  always  on  the  alert  to  recognize  it. 

It  is  so  easy  to  hold  on  to  the  old  shells,  thinking 
that  there  is  in  them  something  of  value,  long  after 
the  life  has  departed  from  them  and  truth  with  all  its 
goodly  train  has  moved  on,  giving  joy  and  blessings  to 
those  that  are  keeping  pace  with  her,  while  we  fondly 
cling  to  the  worthless  thing. 

The  crying  error  of  the  time  is  that  zve  stand  in  azve 
of  government  and  forget  that,  in  a  sense,  zve  are 
government.  Everything  that  is  enacted  in  the  nation, 
or  in  any  of  at  all  similar  constitution,  is  enacted  by 
the  people  through  their  chosen  representatives  acting 
for  their  interests ;  or  by  the  consent  of  the  people, 
in  that  these  representatives  act  for  corporate  and 
moneyed  interests  through  party  machines  and  plat- 
forms and  manipulators.  Where  the  people  should  be 
supreme,  manipulators  and  moneyed  interests  working 
through  parties  and  through  city  councils  and  leg- 
islatures are  supreme.     Lobbies  and  manipulators  and 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  73 

bribed  or  directly  bought  councilmen  and  legislators 
are  only  the  tools  of  the  moneyed  interests.  This  is 
at  the  bottom,  it  is  safe  to  say,  of  at  least  nine-tenths 
of  all  our  present  political  corruption ;  for  the  man- 
ipulator, the  ward-heeler,  the  lobbyist,  the  saloon 
keeping  councilman,  the  venal  state  legislator,  are  only 
the  tools  of  these  "  interests."  The  latter  are  the 
principals,  the  former  merely  the  agents  through  which 
they  work  to  obtain  the  privileges  —  the  natural  rights 
and  properties  of  the  people  —  through  which  they 
make  their  royal  millions. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  at  those  periods  when 
corporations  and  private  business  have  been  most 
venal,  political  corruption,  either  municipal  or  state, 
has  been  the  most  open  and  brazen  and  black.  Yet  the 
principals  have  been  our  respectable  business  men, 
founders  sometimes  of  our  wealthiest  and  later  on  aris- 
tocratic and  exclusive  families.  They,  I  repeat,  have 
been  the  big  thieves  working  through  these  agencies. 

Lately  the  political  corruption  of  some  of  our  large 
cities  has  been  traced  and  exposed  by  Lincoln  Steffens 
in  a  series  of  articles  in  one  of  our  leading  magazines, 
and  later  republished  in  book  form  under  the  title, 
"  The  Shame  of  the  Cities."  In  one  of  his  articles  en- 
titled "  Enemies  of  the  Republic,"  Mr.  Steffens  has 
this  to  say : 

"  Every  time  I  attempted  to  trace  to  its  source  the 
political  corruption  of  a  city  ring,  the  stream  of  pol- 
lution branched  off  in  the  most  unexpected  directions. 
...  It  flowed  out  of  the  majority  party  into  the 
minority ;    out  of  politics  into  vice  and  crime,  out  of 


74  The  Land  of  Liz'ing  Men 

business  into  politics,  and  back  into  business.  .  .  . 
We  are  all  of  us  on  the  wrong  track.  You  can't  re- 
form a  city  by  reforming  a  part  of  it.  You  can't 
reform  a  city  alone.  You  can't  reform  politics  alone. 
.  .  .  The  corruption  of  our  American  politics  is  our 
American  corruption,  political,  but  financial  and  in- 
dustrial too. 

"  Our  political  corruption  is  a  system,  a  regularly 
established  custom  of  the  country,  by  which  our  polit- 
ical leaders  are  hired  by  bribery,  by  the  license  to  loot, 
and  by  quiet  moral  support,  to  conduct  the  government 
of  city,  state,  and  nation,  not  for  the  common  good, 
but  for  the  special  interests  of  private  business.  Not 
the  politician,  then,  not  the  bribe  taker,  but  the  bribe 
giver,  the  man  we  are  so  proud  of,  our  successful 
business  man,  he  is  the  source  and  the  sustenance  of 
our  bad  government.  The  captain  of  industry  is  the 
man  to  catch.     His  is  the  trail  to  follow." 

We  as  a  nation  would  hold  up  our  hands  in  horror 
even  at  the  thought  —  we  are  so  intensely  democratic 
—  of  any  titled  person,  and  through  such  right,  even 
though  he  be  of  the  highest  type  and  one  imbued  with 
the  highest  sense  of  public  welfare  and  justice,  ruling 
over  us  even  for  a  limited  time.  But  the  large  moneyed 
interests  have  gotten  us  so  used  to  it  that  we  seem  to 
think  nothing  of  having  large  and  important  portions 
of  our  public  afifairs  in  the  hands  of  the  lowest  type  of 
our  citizenship,  and  allowing  them  to  do  most  im- 
portant ])ortions  of  our  governing  for  us.  We  seem 
to  be  fully  satisfied  that  they  be  our  rulers,  for  in  some 
centres  and  at  limes  it  amounts  to  this.     It  is  through 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  75 

them  that  we  pass  over  annually  the  vast  millions  of 
wealth  that  go  to  their  principals,  and  accept  in  re- 
turn, meagre  and  many  times  disgraceful  and  disgust- 
ing types  of  public  service  that  so  often,  or  to  speak- 
more  accurately,  they  generally,  give  to  the  public. 

Such  has  been  the  origin  of  the  wealth  of  many  of 
our  enormously  rich  and  well-known  families,  and 
they  are  now  becoming  so  intrenched  as  to  be  a  very 
distinct  menace  to  the  public  welfare.  It  is  only  by 
a  socialized  people  that  their  power  can  now  be  broken. 

Of  corruption  in  the  government  of  our  municipali- 
ties, Andrew  D.  White  as  far  back  as  1890  had  this  to 
say :  "  Without  the  slightest  exaggeration,  we  may 
assert  that,  with  few  exceptions,  the  city  governments 
of  the  United  States  are  the  worst  in  Christendom,  the 
most  expensive,  the  most  inefficient,  and  the  most  cor- 
rupt. No  one  who  has  any  considerable  knowledge 
of  our  own  country  and  of  other  countries  can  deny 
this. 

"  The  city  halls  of  these  larger  towns  are  the  ac- 
knowledged centres  of  the  vilest  corruption.  They 
are  absolutely  demoralizing,  not  merely  to  those  who 
live  under  their  sway,  but  to  the  country  at  large. 
Such  cities,  like  the  decaying  spots  on  ripe  fruit,  tend 
to  corrupt  the  whole  body  politic.  As  a  rule,  the  men 
who  sit  in  the  councils  of  our  larger  cities,  dispensing 
comfort  or  discomfort,  justice  or  injustice,  beauty  or 
deformity,  health  or  disease,  to  this  and  to  future 
generations,  are  men  who  in  no  other  country  would 
think  of  aspiring  to  such  positions.  Some  of  them, 
indeed,  would  think  themselves  lucky  in  keeping  out- 


76  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

side  the  prisons.  Officials  entrusted  with  the  expen- 
diture of  the  vast  wealth  of  our  citizens  are  frequently 
men  whom  no  one  would  think  of  entrusting  with  the 
management  of  his  private  affairs,  or,  indeed,  of  em- 
ploying in  any  capacity.  Few  have  gained  their  posi- 
tions by  fitness  or  by  public  service ;  many  have  gained 
them  by  scoundrelism ;    some  by  crime."  * 

The  same  can  be  said  of  various  members  of  our 
state  legislatures.  These  are  the  types  of  men  that 
most  of  our  great  corporate  interests  work  through. 
Some  are  put  there  deliberately  and  directly  for  this 
purpose.  Should  anyone  have  any  doubt  of  this,  let 
him  become  thoroughly  acquainted  among  other  things 
with  the  history  of  the  principal  railroad  in  the  states, 
say,  Michigan,  Pennsylvania,  New  York,  Connecticut, 
Massachusetts,  California. 

The  great  common  people  have  everything  in  their 
hands  when  they  once  fully  realize  it.  They  must 
come  forward  and  make  politicians  and  the  moneyed 
interests  know  their  power.  They  must  take  over  and 
back  to  themselves  the  power  that  they  have  gradually 
allowed  to  be  usurped  by  the  politician,  the  political 
leader,  for  these  enormously  fat  and  gorged  concerns 
and  individuals. 

A  people  with  that  great  weapon  of  freedom  —  tJie 
franchise  —  are  invincible  in  the  expression  of  their 
preferences  and  their  demands  when  they  present  an 
intelligent  and  united  interest,  if  it  be  done  before 
special  privilege  with  its  great  accumulations  of  wealth 

*  The  forum,  December,  1890. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  yy 

and  power  has  grown  too  great  and  too  cunning  and 
too  corrupting.  When  we  take  into  consideration  how 
vastly  the  great  common  working  people  out-number 
the  privileged  classes,  something  over  a  hundred  to 
one,  then  we  must  wonder  that  greed  and  graft  and 
vast  and  unscrupulous  wealth  have  been  able  to  attain 
to  the  proportions  they  have  already  attained  in  our 
midst.  But  the  reason  abounds;  and  later  we  shall 
consider  it  fully. 

Certainly  one  of  the  great  central  facts  of  govern- 
ment, one  of  the  greatest  fundamental  principles  of  a 
government  of  freedom  and  intelligence,  is  the  insur- 
ing of  equal  privileges  for  all  and  special  priznlegcs  for 
none.  This  we  had  nominally,  at  least,  in  the  nation, 
but  in  reality  a  very  small  fraction  of  this  proposition 
is  true  to-day,  and  we  are  witnessing  its  departure 
from  among  us  to-day  more  rapidly  than  ever  before. 
If  this  continues  at  the  rate  it  has  been  going  on 
during  the  past  twenty  years  or  so,  and  at  the  rate  it 
is  going  on  at  present  it  will  be  but  a  short  time,  and 
within  the  experience  of  many  now  living,  until  it  will 
be  that  the  "  equal  privileges  and  opportunities  for 
all  "  will  have  been  swallowed  up  completely  by  the 
special  privileges  and  the  consequent  vast  accumula- 
tions of  the  few. 

Life  in  no  country  can  be  happy  or  prosperous  or  at 
all  satisfying  where  special  privilege  reigns  and  one 
great  class  is  produced  that  becomes  simply  a  grist  for 
another  class.  The  loss  to  citizenship  is  so  enormous, 
and  its  influences  are  so  deadly  that  the  entire  nation 
becomes  so  thoroughly  diseased  politically  and  socially 


78  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

and  its  foundations  are  so  quietly  undermined,  that 
before  it  is  realized  the  nation  is  already  in  its  decline, 
under  the  workings  of  the  same  mighty  compelling 
laws  that  have  never  yet  faltered  nor  delayed  in  de- 
creeing the  fate  of  nations.  Each  for  all  and  all  for 
each  was  the  mandate  that  was  written  in  the  beginning 
and  as  long  even  as  time  endures,  it  will  brook  no 
change  nor  will  it  permit  the  slightest  modification. 


V 

IN  A  GREAT  "PEOPLE'S  MOVEMENT"  LIES  THE 
PEOPLE'S  GREATER  WELFARE  AND  THE  SAFETY 
OF  ALL  THEIR  INSTITUTIONS  —  IT  IS  DUE 
NOW 


f^y~\>^^-^-^  greater  part  of  really  important  legis- 
1  ''  /^l^^''i  l^t^on  up  to  the  present  time  has  been  for 
I')  I^Y'I  ^^^  benefit  of  the  great  corporate  and 
|^siiiTri|  moneyed  interests.  Henceforth  the  greater 
part  of  it  must  be  for  the  people  —  the  great  common 
people  that  has  made  this,  and  every  country,  and 
upon  whose  welfare  ultimately  all  depends.  We  shall 
have  the  management  of  the  nation's  affairs  in  our  own 
hands  just  as  securely  and  just  as  quickly  as  we  really 
so  elect.  There  must  be  more  of  the  people's  men  in 
our  municipal,  our  state,  and  our  national  assemblies. 
A  rich  operator  in  Robert  Owen's  time,  held,  in  con- 
nection with  his  fellows,  that  they  could  not  afford  to 
dispense  with  child  labor  because  that  would  drive 
business  out  of  England.  The  "  maudlin  sentimental- 
ism  of  those  who  knew  neither  business  nor  human 
nature,"  they  pronounced  all  legal  interference  with 
child  labor.  Yet  he,  according  to  his  own  admission, 
had  been  making  in  the  cotton  business  200  per  cent 
in  yearly  profits.     So  the  cries  will  go  tip  to-day  when 

79 


8o  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

the  people  begin  to  redeem  the  country  and  its  re- 
sources for  their  own  common  use.  The  shghtest 
movement  that  aims  at  checking  the  enormous  profits 
that  are  being  reaped  from  the  resources  that  should 
belong  to  the  people  in  common,  is  even  now  being  met 
with  that  same  cry.  The  number  of  labor  disturbances 
during  the  past  few  years  and  to-day  is  in  part,  and 
among  other  things,  the  measure  of  dissatisfaction 
with  the  present  monopolistic  system.  It  does  not 
bring  justice  to  labor.  This,  all  thinking  and  right- 
feeling  men  are  realizing,  and  realizing  all  too  keenly. 

It  was  a  great  people's  movement  in  connection  with 
the  "  Corn  Laws  "  in  England,  in  Cobden's  time,  that 
brought  about  a  peaceable  revolution,  in  place  of  what 
would  have  easily  been  a  revolution  of  another  type. 

IV c  are  to  have  among  us  a  revolution,  a  great  and  a 
very  clear-cut  revolution,  but  a  great  people's  move- 
ment insures  that  it  will  be  an  evolutionary  revolution, 
a  peaceable  revolution,  but  no  less  marked  and  telling, 
in  fact,  far  more  telling  than  any  blood  revolution  can 
possibly  be. 

In  an  intelligent  and  a  determined  political  action  on 
the  part  of  the  common  people  lies  our  safety ;  it  is 
along  this  path  that  we  must  move. 

Money  as  a  force  in  legislation,  used  as  it  is,  some- 
times almost  like  water  by  the  great  capitalistic  con- 
cerns in  their  carefully  studied  direct  and  indirect 
ways,  in  the  bribery  and  debauchery  of  public  officials, 
is  an  evil  of  such  a  wide-spread  nature  that  it  must  be 
corrected  by  the  people.  The  complaint  is  now  so 
frequently  heard,  that  the  people  do  not  get  a   fair 


The  Laud  of  Living  Men         ■  8l 

show.  It  is  true ;  but  it  is  also  true  that  it  is  our  own 
fault  that  we  do  not.  If  we  look  as  carefully  to  elec- 
tions and  appointments  as  the  great  moneyed  interests 
do,  then  that  complaint  will  forever  lose  its  force. 
This  is  a  most  vital  fact  for  our  great  farming  com- 
munities to  learn,  almost  as  much  or  even  more,  than 
any  other  portion  of  our  people,  because  in  some  re- 
spects and  in  some  sections  conditions  with  them  have 
at  times  become  well-nigh  intolerable.  We  must  rec- 
ognize once  and  for  all  the  fact  that  government  is 
always  as  good  as  the  people  demand  it  should  be. 
"  No  King,  no  veriest  tyrant  ever  ruled  except  by  the 
will  of  the  people.  Because  the  popular  will  has  been 
ignorant  and  evil,  states  have  been  evil." 

I  think  in  the  following  paragraphs  that  clear-think- 
ing and  far-seeing  statesman,  the  late  Ex-Governor 
Altgeld  of  Illinois,  has  given  us  some  wonderfully  clear 
and  thought-compelling  statements  along  this  line.  In 
an  address  before  the  American  Railway  Trainmen,  at 
Galesburg,  Illinois,  he  said :  "  If  our  institutions  are 
to  undergo  great  change,  it  is  vital  that  the  men  of 
America,  and  not  the  money,  should  direct  the  change. 
Money  may  be  a  blessing  as  a  servant,  but  it  is  a  curse 
as  a  master.  Money  never  established  republican  in- 
stitutions in  the  world.  It  has  no  natural  affinity  with 
them,  and  does  not  understand  them.  Money  has 
neither  soul  nor  sentiment.  It  does  not  know  the 
meaning  of  liberty,  and  it  sneers  at  the  rights  of  man. 
It  never  bled  on  the  battlefield  in  time  of  war,  and  it 
never  voluntarily  sought  the  public  treasury  in  time 
of  peace.   .    .    .   Men  in  time  acquire  the  nature  of 


82  The  Laud  of  Living  Men 

those  things  which  absorb  their  Hves.  Unconsciously 
and  invisibly  they  undergo  a  change  until  those  things 
which  occupy  their  daily  thoughts  seem  actually  to 
circulate  in  their  veins.  Consequently  in  all  countries, 
in  all  ages,  and  among  all  peoples,  it  has  been  found 
that  as  a  rule  the  possessors  of  great  wealth  were  not 
the  patriots.  On  the  contrary,  they  seemed  to  care 
little  what  flag  floated  over  them,  provided  it  was  a 
flag  that  would  give  them  a  bayonet  with  which  to 
protect  their  gold.  The  men  who  in  the  late  war  left 
their  millions  of  hoarded  treasure  and  shouldered  a 
musket  to  fight  for  the  Union  were  as  scarce  as  the 
camels  that  have  passed  through  the  eye  of  the  needle. 
The  soldiers'  cemeteries  of  patriotic  dead  are  filled 
with  men  who  when  alive  had  to  struggle  for  a  living. 
It  is  the  great  masses  of  the  people  who  defend  the 
government  in  time  of  war,  and  who  bear  its  burdens 
in  time  of  peace,  and  these  alone  know  the  full  value 
of  free  institutions.  It  is  therefore  important  that  the 
destinies  of  our  government  should  be  shaped  by  this 
class,  and  they  can  be  relied  upon  to  do  justice  to 
cai)ital.  They  appreciate  the  fact  that  capital  is  not 
only  a  convenience,  but  may  be  of  the  greatest  possible 
use  to  man  when  properly  directed.  While  money  may 
have  done  a  great  injustice  to  the  masses,  the  masses 
have  never  done  an  injustice  to  money. 

"  Now,  how  will  you  meet  these  problems?  Standing 
as  individuals  in  the  presence  of  mighty  combinations 
you  will  be  crushed  and  there  will  be  no  hope  for  you 
or  your  children.  I  can  see  no  other  course  for  you 
than  to  stand  together,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  intelli- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  83 

g-ently  and  patriotically.  A  great  force  never  holds 
itself  in  check,  whether  in  the  phenomena  of  nature, 
in  politics,  in  government,  or  in  religion.  Only  a 
counter  or  resisting  force  will  check  it.  If  concen- 
trated capital  shall  meet  with  no  checking  influence,  or 
force,  then  republican  institutions  must  come  to  an 
end,  and  we  will  have  but  two  classes  in  this  country, 
an  exceedingly  wealthy  class  on  one  hand,  and  a  spirit- 
less, crushed,  poverty-stricken  laboring  class  on  the 
other.  The  hope  of  the  country  depends  upon  having 
a  number  of  forces  that  will  counterbalance  or  check 
each  other.  And  in  this  connection  let  me  suggest  to 
you  that  the  world  has  progressed  to  a  point  where 
intelligence  will  always  defeat  brute  force,  and  any 
method  of  contest  that  involves  violence  belongs  to  a 
bygone  age.  The  modern  methods  of  warfare  in 
society  are  of  an  entirely  different  character. 

You  complain  sometimes  that  you  do  not  get  a  fair 
show,  that  capital  controls  legislation,  that  by  selecting 
the  candidates  for  the  judicial  offices,  it  in  many  cases 
controls  the  courts  and  that  the  same  is  true  in  the  ex- 
ecution of  the  laws.  But  you  have  yourselves  largely 
to  blame.  ...  It  has  happened  frequently  in  the 
past  in  this  State  and  in  other  States  that  you  wanted 
legislation  which  you  thought  was  necessary  and  just, 
and  you  supported  men  for  the  legislature  whom  you 
believed  were  honest,  but  who,  as  soon  as  they  received 
their  certificate  of  election,  crept  up  the  rear  stairway 
to  the  office  of  some  corporation  and  tendered  their 
services  in  the  hope  of  obtaining  some  financial  or 
other  advantage.     Did  you  afterwards  spot  those  men 


84  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

as  being-  unworthy  of  your  confidence?  Not  at  all. 
Their  chances  for  public  preferment  were  just  as  good 
thereafter  as  they  were  before.  Again,  corporations 
have  for  many  years  looked  after  the  matter  of  select- 
ing judges,  especially  of  the  federal  courts.  They 
realized  the  fact  that  the  construction  of  the  laws  is 
even  more  important  than  the  making  of  laws,  and  to 
have  a  friend  on  the  bench  is  much  more  important 
than  to  have  a  lawmaker  at  the  capitol.  It  is  asserted 
that  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  no  man  has  been  ap- 
pointed to  the  federal  bench  unless  he  was  either  a 
corporation  lawyer  or  was  known  to  hold  views  which 
made  him  satisfactory  to  those  interests,  and  when 
these  judges  afterward  distorted  the  law  and  usurped 
powers  to  assist  corporations  and  smite  you,  they  were 
not  necessarily  corrupt.  They  were  simply  giving 
force  to  prejudices  which  they  had  imbibed  during 
their  former  association  with  corporate  influences. 

It  has  never  happened  in  this  country  that  you  or  any 
other  organization  of  labor  men  or  of  farmers  sent  a 
delegation  to  wait  upon  the  President  in  reference  to 
the  appointment  or  rejection  of  any  particular  man  to 
any  judicial  office.  You  have  not  looked  after  your 
interests  and  you  have  no  right  to  complain  if  you  are 
discriminated  against  under  these  circumstances. 
Every  man  who  seeks  office  in  this  country  will  need 
your  support,  and  once  let  him  understand  that  you  are 
capable  of  acting  intelligently  and  standing  together, 
and  that  you  insist  on  being  honestly  dealt  with,  and 
you  will  see  a  great  change.  Fall  in  with  what  is  the 
spirit  of  the  times.     Practice  intelligent  coml)ination. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  85 

Move  along  the  lines  of  law  and  of  justice  and  practice 
foresight  and  you  will  be  able  to  right  almost  any 
grievance." 

A  nation  such  as  this  depends  solely,  for  its  welfare 
as  well  as  for  its  perpetuity,  upon  the  hearts  and  minds 
and  ambitions  of  its  people.  With  these  crushed  and 
traduced  by  monopoly  and  the  despoiler,  the  nation  is 
doomed  and  even  the  corporate  interests  themselves 
will  in  time  be  torn  to  pieces. 

To  trace  the  long  fight  for  political  freedom  which 
those  before  us  had  to  undergo,  shows  us  how  hopeful 
and  how  advantageous  our  position  is.  Had  we  not 
political  freedom  and  the  right  of  the  ballot  in  face  of 
these  rapidly  growing  concentrations  of  evil  among  us, 
our  position  would  be  well-nigh  hopeless.  As  it  is  we 
cannot  be  other  than  masters  of  this  critical  situation 
if  we  come  but  speedily  to  a  realization  of  the  great 
forces  that  lie  within  our  reach,  and  if  we  use  them  as 
intelligent  freemen.  The  great  battle  that  must  now 
be  waged  is  the  battle  for  economic  freedom,  for  equal 
opportunities,  for  justice  in  working  conditions,  for 
justice  in  legislation  and  administration. 

He  who  owns  or  controls  that  upon  which  others 
depend  owns  and  controls  them.  The  fundamental 
issue  at  stake  is  justice  and  equal  opportunities,  a  more 
equal  justice  in  the  distribution  of  the  results  of  labor, 
and  a  using  for  all  the  people  of  those  great  natural 
common  resources  that  are  now  being  grabbed  and 
monopolized  and  used  for  the  enrichment  of  the  few. 

How  strange  our  position  is,  could  be  revealed  by  an 
estimate  of  the  millions  upon  millions  in  the  form  of 


86  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

natural  franchises  that  we  allow  to  be  taken  from  us 
each  year,  and  that  are  making  so  enormously  rich  the 
few  men  and  families  that  have  become  so  self- 
conceited  as  they  roll  in  this  wealth.  And  then  make 
a  comparison  of  the  immense  preponderance  of  the 
voting  power  of  the  people  over  this  relatively  small 
number  —  millions  compared  to  the  thousands.  But 
they  have  been  making  this  their  business.  Very 
quietly,  while  the  masses  of  the  people  have  been 
going  about  their  own  private  affairs,  they  have  been 
getting  possession  of  and  diverting  to  their  own  coffers 
these  immensely  valuable  concessions,  and  which  have 
grown  more  enormous  in  their  profits  as  the  country 
has  grown  in  population  and  the  needs  of  the  people 
have  increased.  While  the  people  have  been  farming 
the  farms,  this  small  privileged  class,  as  an  able  writer 
has  recently  put  it,  has  been  "  farming  the  farmers." 
They  have  acted  upon  the  principle  that  he  enunciates 
in  speaking  of  their  methods  as  follows  —  do  not  fool 
yourself  while  there  are  other  people  to  fool.  The 
way  to  succeed  is  not  to  work,  but  to  work  the  work- 
ers ;   not  to  farm  the  farms,  but  to  farm  the  farmers. 

And  how  even  now  money  is  trying  to  blind  the 
eyes  of  the  people  to  prevent  them  from  seeing  clearly 
and  taking  back  to  themselves  these  great  resources, 
can  be  seen  on  every  hand.  But  the  hour  has  struck 
and  we  are  on  the  move.  The  day  to  hesitate  or  to 
delay  is  passed.  Revelations  have  been  coming  so 
rapidly  of  late,  and  facts  so  momentous  in  their  im- 
port are  becoming  so  clear,  that  we  could  not  turn 
back  even  if  we  would.     Every  law  of  human  nature 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  87 

and  human  development  cries  out  against  it.  And  al- 
though concentrated  wealth  and  power  may  exert  every 
influence  to  climb  and  to  stifle  the  idea  of  greater 
equality  and  justice,  the  thoughts  and  the  voices  of 
men  of  genius  and  insight  are  up,  and  the  great  com- 
mon people  are  hearing  them  over  and  over  again 
giving  voice  and  sanction  to  their  own  thoughts  and 
rapidly  forming  conclusions. 

Attempts  to  do  something  for  men  by  philanthropy 
to  take  the  place  of  what  is  taken  away  from  or  what 
is  denied  them,  will  fail.  And  they  ought  to  fail.  No 
manipulations  of  this  sort  will  ever  take  the  place  of 
justice.  Justice  is  the  absolute  law,  and  it  will  compel 
obedience  to  itself  sooner  or  later.  The  enlightened 
people  —  the  people  of  the  great  nation  want  and  will 
demand  conditions  of  such  a  nature  that  they  can 
build  with  the  builder's  satisfaction  and  pleasure  their 
own  art  museums  and  libraries  and  institutions  of 
learning.  Not  benefactions,  but  what  by  right  belongs 
to  one.  What  belongs  to  labor  and  the  citizen  by  moral 
right  shall  be  made  so  in  fact  by  legal  right.  Nothing 
short  of  this  in  the  end  will  satisfy. 

"  Social  service,"  and  schemes  for  "  social  better- 
ment "  are  good,  and  praisew^orthy  in  their  place,  but 
they  will  never  be  accepted  as  taking  the  place  of  those 
more  essential  things  that  are  the  rightful  inherit- 
ance of  the  people,  nor  should  they. 

"  The  separation  between  the  owners  of  fixed  capital 
and  the  laborer  has  long  been  noted ;  but  with  vast 
federated  plants,  managed  by  hired  intermediaries,  it 
is  unavoidable.     There  will  be  brave  attempts  to  meet 


88  TIic  Loud  of  Living  Men 

the  difficulty  by  alluring  philanthropies,  by  '  doing 
something  for  the  workingmen.'  If  merely  philan- 
thropic, these  will  fail  as  they  deserve.  Benevolent 
schemes  that  bear  the  slightest  taint  of  charity  have 
at  last  got  the  contempt  of  the  intelligent  wage-earners. 

"  Importunate,  and  never  again  to  be  silenced,  their 
demand  is  that  they  get  their  benefits,  not  as  gifts  or 
favors,  but  as  recognized  rights.  Philanthropies  are  a 
dangerous  substitute  for  honest  wage  payment,  shorter 
working  time,  and  increased  influence  over  the  con- 
ditions of  the  labor  contract.  What  may  be  called  the 
Great  Bluff  of  our  time  is  to  put  gratuities  and  bene- 
factions in  the  place  of  justice.  There  is  no  donation, 
however  gaudy,  that  can  fill  the  place  of  justice.  The 
attempt  of  the  ruling  class  to  do  this  is  the  oldest  trick 
in  history.  It  was  the  opinion  of  a  Roman  emperor, 
'  Magnificence  in  gifts  may  deceive  even  the  gods.' 
The  crowd  could  then  be  quieted  by  the  brutalities 
of  a  pageant,  the  butcheries  in  the  arena,  by  fleets  of 
stolen  grain  scattered  among  the  people,  as  a  Tam- 
many heeler  scatters  gifts  and  personal  kindnesses  be- 
fore the  election.  We  are  at  least  civilized  so  far  that 
we  demand  more  decorum,  and  a  certain  humanizing 
of  our  largesses.  They  must  bear  the  image  of  charity 
and  good-will  to  men.  They  must  be  educational,  ar- 
tistic, and  in  all  ways  incentives  to  good  morals  and 
religion. 

"  Now  it  would  be  both  untrue  and  offensive  to  deny 
that  these  later  bounties  are  vast  improvements  upon 
the  free  circus  of  Caligula.  No  wise  man  would  check 
a    generous    instinct    of    any    multi-millionaire.      The 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  89 

books,  pictures,  churches,  and  schools  take  their  places 
among  the  welfare  institutions  of  our  time.  They 
are  influences  which  deserve  the  honest  and  grateful 
approval  of  the  public. 

"  Yet  when  this  tribute  to  good  motive  and  good  re- 
sult has  been  paid,  the  story  is  not  finished.  We  are 
hoodwinked,  unless  we  see  that  there  ought  to  be,  and 
possibly  may  be,  a  still  better  way  than  this  to  acquire 
individual  and  social  morality.  The  sturdy  self-respect 
in  any  community  that  should  build  its  own  church, 
school,  library,  dispensary, —  paying  every  honest  bill 
as  it  goes, —  would  show  an  exhilarating  superiority 
before  which  ever3'one  of  us  would  hasten  to  pay  re- 
spect. We  must  be  grateful  to  our  princely  givers, 
but  the  mistake  would  be  fatal  to  accept  this  method  of 
splendid  subsidies  as  a  finality.  What  we  really  want 
is  the  ability  and  the  instructed  will  to  pay  our  own 
bills,  even  if  the  pace  of  our  civilization  halts  a  little."  * 
Excellent,  and  nothing  in  the  quotation  more  suggest- 
ive so  to  speak,  than  the  last  phrase  — "  even  if  the 
pace  of  our  civilization  halts  a  little."  Why  should  we 
be  proud  of  mere  largeness  and  rapidity?  especially 
as  it  does  not  benefit  the  great  masses  of  the  people, 
but  only  the  few,  the  very  small  fraction.  But  upon 
closer  examination  the  fact  will  reveal  itself,  that  ex- 
cessive wealth  is  of  real  value  to  no  man,  and  especially 
when  gotten  by  means  so  manifestly  unfair  and  so 
morally  unjustifiable,  as  the  great  portion  of  excessive 
zvealth   is   gotten   to-day.      Give   me   neither   riches  — 

*  "  The  Social  Unrest,"  by  John  Graham  Brooks,  p.  203. 


go  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

great  wealth  —  nor  poverty,  will  ever  be  the  desire  of 
the  trulv  wise,  but  give  me  that  comfortable  amount 
that  is  conducive  to  the  highest,  the  noblest,  the  most 
useful,  and  consequently,  the  most  happy  life. 

Justice,  not  gifts,  not  charity. 

There  is  a  spirit  in  the  American  people,  in  all  Saxon 
people,  that  rebels  against  the  proffer  of  gifts  and 
charity  as  an  equivalent  for  what  rightly  belongs  to 
them.  This  spirit  can  be  neither  changed  nor  broken 
until  at  least  the  present  unequal  distribution  of  wealth 
grows  to  such  an  extent,  that  it  results  in  the  concen- 
tration of  the  greater  portion  of  the  wealth  and  re- 
sources of  the  nation  in  so  few  hands,  that  the  poverty 
of  the  people  becomes  so  great,  that  the  spirit  of  free- 
men is  so  broken  that  they  sink  to  the  position  of 
paupers  and  public  wards. 

Said  Mr.  Lecky,  while  speaking  of  the  prosper- 
itv  of  nations  and  their  causes  as  indicated  by  his- 
tory :  "  Its  foundation  is  laid  in  pure  domestic  life,  in 
commercial  integrity,  in  a  high  standard  of  moral 
worth,  and  of  public  spirit,  in  simple  habits,  in  courage, 
uprightness,  and  a  certain  soundness  and  moderation 
of  judgment  which  spring  quite  as  much  from  char- 
acter as  from  intellect.  If  you  would  form  a  wise 
judgment  of  the  future  of  a  nation,  observe  carefully 
whether  these  qualities  are  increasing  or  decaying.  Ob- 
serve especially  what  qualities  count  for  most  in  public 
life.  Is  character  becoming  of  greater  or  less  im- 
portance? Are  the  men  who  obtain  the  highest  posts 
in  the  nation,  men  of  w'hom  in  private  life,  and  irre- 
spective of  party,  competent  judges  speak  with  genuine 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  91 

respect?  x\re  they  of  sincere  convictions,  consistent 
lives,  indisputable  integrity?  .  .  .  It  is  by  observing 
this  moral  current  that  you  can  best  cast  the  horoscope 
of  a  nation."  * 

This  social  unrest  that  has  been  vaguely  witnessed 
during  the  past  few  years,  increasing  yearly,  has  grad- 
ually brought  the  people  to  a  definite  point  of  view  and 
to  a  definite  knowledge  of  facts.  Evolution  indeed  has 
been  doing  its  work  in  spite  of  the  rapid  aggressions 
of  the  immensely  rich,  over  against  which  has  been  set 
the  slowly  moving  discernment  of  the  people.  For  a 
long  time  there  was  unrest  coupled  with  a  sort  of 
groping  in  the  dark,  a  failure  to  understand  the  full 
significance,  let  alone  the  causes  of  this  great  unrest. 
Back  of  it  all,  however,  has  been  thonglit,  in  addition  to 
feeling,  on  the  part  of  the  people,  quickened  and  in- 
tensified at  times  by  most  bitter  experiences,  until  now 
a  new  mental  activity  is  born,  and  it  is  being  quickened 
by  the  possession  of  some  clear-cut  and  wonderfully 
significant  facts. 

Says  Benjamin  Kidd,  in  the  closing  pages  of  liis 
very  able  work,  "Social  Evolution:"  "We  see  that, 
under  all  the  complex  appearances  our  western  civil- 
ization presents,  the  central  process  working  itself  out 
in  our  midst  is  one  which  is  ever  tending  to  bring,  for 
the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the  race,  all  the  people 
into  the  competition  of  life  on  a  footing  of  equahty  of 
opportunity.  In  this  process  the  problem,  with  which 
society  and  legislators  will  be  concerned  for  long  into 

*  "  The  Political  Value  of  History,"  by  W.  E.  H.  Lecky. 


92  The  Land  of  Lhitig  Men 

the  future,  will  be  how  to  secure  to  the  fullest  deg-riL 
these  conditions  of  equality,  while  at  the  same  time  re- 
taining that  degree  of  inequality  which  must  resuli 
from  offering  prizes  sufficiently  attractive  to  keep  U| 
within  the  community  that  state  of  stress  and  exertion, 
without  which  no  people  can  long  continue  in  a  high 
state  of  social  efficiency.  For  in  the  vast  process  of 
change  in  progress  it  is  always  the  conditions  of  social 
efficiency,  and  not  those  which  individuals  or  classes 
may  desire  for  themselves,  that  the  unseen  evolutionary 
forces  at  work  amongst  us  are  engaged  in  devel- 
oping.   .    .    . 

"  The  fact  of  our  time  which  overshadows  all  others 
is  the  arrival  of  Democracy.  But  the  perception  of  the 
fact  is  of  relatively  little  importance  if  we  do  not  also 
realize  that  it  is  a  new  Democracy.  There  are  many 
who  speak  of  the  new  ruler  of  nations  as  if  he  were 
the  same  idle  Demos  whose  ears  the  dishonest  cour- 
tiers have  tickled  from  time  immemorial.  It  is  not  so. 
Even  those  who  attempt  to  lead  him  do  not  yet  quite 
understand  him.  Those  who  think  that  he  is  about  to 
bring  chaos  instead  of  order,  do  not  rightly  apprehend 
the  nature  of  his  strength.  They  do  not  perceive  that 
the  arrival  is  the  crowning  result  of  an  ethical  move- 
ment in  which  qualities  and  attributes,  which  we  have 
been  all  taught  to  regard  as  the  very  highest  of  which 
human  nature  is  capable,  find  the  completest  expres- 
sion they  have  ever  reached  in  the  history  of  the  race." 

Such  indeed  is  the  opinion  of  many  other  clear  and 
disinterested  thinkers  in  addition  to  that  of  the  able 
author  of  "  Social  Evolution."    A  great  people's  move- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  93 

ment  to  bring-  back  to  the  people  the  immense  belong- 
iiigs  that  have  been  taken  away  from  them,  and  to 
prevent  a  continuance  of  this  from  now  on,  is  the 
supreme  need  of  the  time.  Slowly  and  almost  grop- 
ingly we  have  been  leading  up  to  it,  but  the  incentive 
is  on,  the  knowledge  underlying  its  cause  is  increasing 
and  never  so  rapidly  as  of  late.  There  is  no  power 
now  that  can  stop  it  or  even  materially  hinder  it  any 
more  than  human  power  can  hinder  or  prevent  the 
workings  of  any  of  nature's  great  laws.  It  is  indeed 
most  interesting  to  be  alive,  to  witness  and  to  have 
a  hand  in  the  culmination  of  this  new  order  of  life 
that  all  the  centuries  have  been  leading  up  to. 


VI 

NATURAL    RESOURCES    AND    PUBLIC    UTILITIES 
FOR   THE   PUBLIC   WELFARE 

i  .y^T  is  strange  how  long  and  how  heavily  we 
:;!|,  allow  ourselves  to  be  fleeced,  or  robbed, 
'M'f  ^^y  custom.  Because  we  commence  a  thing 
in  a  certain  way,  is  many  times  the  reason 
we  continue  it  in  that  way  long  after  it  could  be 
changed  to  our  great  advantage.  Because  we  began 
that  way  we  are  still  living  and  acting  under  the  de- 
lusion that  great  public  utilities,  the  value  of  which  is 
caused  by  all  the  people  in  common,  instead  of  being 
managed  by,  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  should 
be  managed  for  the  private  benefit  and  the  enrichment 
of  an  individual  or  little  groups  of  individuals  called 
companies  or  corporations. 

It  is  a  delusion  something  akin  to  the  belief,  which, 
according  to  Charles  Lamb,  so  long  held  sway  among 
the  Chinese  when  the  savor  of  roast  pork  had  been 
accidentally  discovered  through  the  burning  down  of 
Ho-ti's  hut,  that,  in  order  to  cook  a  pig  it  was  neces- 
sary to  set  fire  to  a  house.  By  and  by,  however,  they 
found  that  that  method  was  not  only  crude  and  waste- 
ful, but  also  uncertain  in  its  results.  But  until  a 
Chinese  sage  came  forward  and  invented  a  rude  type 

94 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  95 

of  gridiron  which,  according  to  Lamb's  interesting  dis- 
sertation, was  the  forerunner  of  the  spit  and  the  oven, 
no  one  had  ever  thought  of  a  pig  being  roasted  without 
the  burning  down  of  a  hut,  or  were  it  for  one  better 
circumstanced,  a  house.  They,  therefore,  had  to  fol- 
low the  only  method  they  knew.  With  us,  however, 
in  connection  with  the  supplying  of  certain  great  com- 
mon needs  it  is  different;  for  there  are' other  methods 
of  which  we  already  know,  that  indeed  have  been 
known  and  have  been  in  successful  operation  in  other 
countries  far  more  progressive  in  this  regard  than  we, 
for  more  than  a  score  and  in  some  cases,  for  more  than 
two  score  of  years.  The  only  excuse  I  can  see  is  that 
in  having  begun  in  a  very  crude  and  thoughtless  and 
expensive  way,  we  have  not  been  bright  enough,  or 
energetic  enough  as  yet,  to  find  and  adopt  a  more 
common-sense  and  satisfactory  way. 

At  one  period  in  the  development  of  our  national 
and  municipal  life  there  may  have  been  a  reason  for 
allowing  these  common  necessities  to  be  dealt  with 
entirely  by  private  individuals  or  private  companies. 
There  may  have  been  a  good  or  at  least  a  satisfactory 
reason  for  this  method  when  our  proportions  were 
small  and  our  needs  were  not  so  great  and  not  so 
complex,  when  it  meant  giving  over  to  individuals  not 
such  vast  amounts  that  should  be  used  for  the  advan- 
tage of  all  the  people,  and  when  the  opportunities  for 
getting  these  great  advantages  away  from  the  people 
through  political  corruption  and  debauchery  were  not 
so  great  as  they  are  to-day.  So  there  may  have  been 
a  reason  in  the  beginning,  but  the  basis  for  that  reason 


96  TJic  Land  of  Living  Men 

has  now  passed.  This  method  may  have  been  even 
rig;ht  at  one  time  —  though  this  in  common  with  many 
I  question  —  it  is  no  longer  right  now.  And  the  fact 
that  we  are  beginning  now  to  think  so  rapidly  along 
the  lines  of  a  saner  and  a  better  way  indicates  that  the 
method  in  vogue  so  long  has  nearly  seen  its  day< 
Nevertheless,  although  our  awakening  has  been  tardy, 
our  advance  will  be  rapid. 

It  is  the  people  —  the  people  in  common  —  that 
make  valuable  those  enormously  rich  franchises  that 
have  been  given  over  to  individuals  for  their  private 
enrichment,  in  the  form,  to  deal  first  with  the  city  — 
of  light  and  heat  and  transportation  and  telephone 
privileges,  not  to  mention  the  various  other  ones  at 
present.  It  is  not  only  the  people,  but  to  state  it  still 
more  concretely,  it  is  the  very  needs  of  the  people  that 
give  them  their  enormous  values,  and  it  is  through 
these  that  their  enormous  profits  are  secured.  If  this 
be  true,  why  then  should  not  these  great  interests  be 
conducted  by  and  for  the  benefit  of  the  people,  instead 
of  by  and  for  the  enrichment  of  a  few  private  in- 
dividuals ?  Especially  as  under  our  system  of  enor- 
mously rich  gifts  to  these  individuals  or  groups  of 
individuals,  and  their  conducting  these  enterprises  with 
no  thought  of  the  public  welfare  but  with  the  one 
thought  of  the  greatest  amount  of  profit  for  them- 
selves, first,  last,  and  all  the  time,  we  have  been  having 
for  years  and  are  still  having  along  these  lines,  with 
an  occasional  exception,  as  poor  a  service  with  the 
highest  costs,  and  the  greatest  amount  of  evil  and 
abuses,  as  any  country  in  the  entire  world. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  97 

As  long,  moreover,  as  any  of  the  utilities  that 
are  public  necessities  and  that  from  their  very 
nature  should  be  conducted  by  and  in  the  inter- 
ests of  the  people,  are  allowed  to  be  run  purely  for 
private  gain,  this  condition  of  affairs  will  continue  to 
exist. 

With  all  our  progress  along  other  lines,  it  is  almost 
universally  understood  that  the  conduct  of  our  muni- 
cipal affairs  in  the  United  States  has  been  among  the 
most  backward  and  costly  and  degraded  and  unsat- 
isfactory of  any  in  the  entire  civilized  world. 

In  the  conduct  of  these  affairs  we  are  far  behind  all 
such  countries  as  Germany,  England,  France,  Norway, 
Sweden,  Belgium,  not  to  go  through  almost  the  entire 
list  of  civilized  and  progressive  nations.  It  seems  to 
me  clearly  evident  that  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
case  we  cannot  do  violence  to  the  principle  —  "  That 
which  the  people  collectively  create  they  should  col- 
lectively own,"  without  suffering  this  as  a  result. 
Moreover,  we  shall  never  reach  the  highest  state  in 
municipal  or  even  in  state  or  national  administration, 
until  we  recognize  and  act  upon  the  principle  —  what 
the  people  can  do  best  for  themselves,  that,  through 
their  agent,  the  government,  they  should  do.  They 
f^hould  not,  therefore,  permit  such  governmental  func- 
tions to  be  seized  and  to  be  exploited  by  individuals 
and  corporations. 

There  must,  therefore,  not  only  be  blows  struck  that 
will  forever  put  an  end  to  the  giving  over  to  individ- 
uals of  these  great  common  properties  of  the  people, 
but  there  must  also  be,  to  use  the  words  of  one  of  our 


98  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

foremost  American  editors,  * "  The  recovery  to  the 
people  of  all  franchises  belonging  to  the  people,  but 
diverted  from  public  to  private  uses,  by  the  purchase 
of  corporations  and  individuals,  corruptly  working 
through  state  and  municipal  legislatures." 

To  our  present  method  is  to  be  attributed  the  almost 
unbelievable  amount  of  graft  and  bribery  and  corrup- 
tion that  has  become  so  rampant  among  us  of  late  and 
that  has  been  steadily  swelling  in  its  volume  during 
the  passing  of  the  years.  "  Nothing,"  says  one  editor 
of  another  of  our  foremost  papers,  "  has  conduced  so 
greatly  to  graft  and  bribery  in  municipal  and  state 
affairs  as  the  fact  that  franchises  of  enormous  value 
for  i)ublic  utilities  are  to  be  obtained  by  favor  of  cer- 
tain officials.  Give  the  streets  back  to  the  city  and  this 
element  of  corruption  is  at  once  eliminated." 

If  we  take  away  from  private  gain  those  great 
public  service  utilities,  then  we  at  once  strike  the  axe 
at  the  roots  of  the  larger  share  of  the  source  of  our 
political  corruption  and  debauchery  for  which,  espec- 
ially in  municipal  matters,  we  stand  as  the  most 
notorious  nation  in  the  entire  world.  As  lovers  of 
free  institutions  and  of  ordinary  public  honesty  and 
decency,  this  end  alone,  is  of  sufficient  importance  to 
demand  of  us  such  a  course,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
enormous  gains  otherwise.  The  fact  that  both  city  and 
state  legislation  is  so  dominated  by  great  accumulated 
wealth  and  by  corporations,  especially  public  service 
corporations,  indicates  that  our  prevailing  methods  are 

*  Henry  Watterson  —  The  Louisville  Courier  Journal. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  99 

not  healthy,  and  that  this  great  menace  to  free  insti- 
tutions, and  to -a  government  for  and  by  the  people, 
should  be  speedily  removed. 

A  matter  of  such  vital  importance  to  the  national  and 
individual  welfare  as  the  public  ownership  and  control 
of  all  public  utilities  is  worthy  of  a  most  detailed  con- 
sideration, more  than  we  shall  be  able  to  give  it  in  so 
limited  a  space.  It  is  to  become,  as  it  is  so  rapidly  be- 
ginning now,  one  of  the  paramount  questions  in  the 
policies  of  the  American  nation. 

I  think  there  is  perhaps  no  better  way  of  proceeding 
to  a  consideration  of  the  argument  in  favor  of  such  a 
mehod  of  supplying  our  needs  and  necessities  than  by 
considering  first,  what  has  been  accomplished  in  this 
line  in  the  municipalities  of  other  countries,  ajid  zvith 
li'hat  results.  Many  times  a  long  and  detailed  argu- 
ment that  a  certain  thing  cannot  be  done,  is  best  met  by 
showing  that  it  already  has  been  or  is  being  done,  and 
most  successfully. 

On  account  of  the  general  characteristics  and  con- 
ditions there  being  probably  more  nearly  akin  to  our 
own,  we  shall  look  in  the  direction  of  Great  Britain 
first. 

I  think  we  cannot  do  better  at  this  point  .than  con- 
sider some  facts  as  presented  by  Mr.  John  Martin,* 
whose  statistics  in  connection  with  Great  Britain  are 

*  Mr.  Martin  was  formerly  a  member  of  the  Hackney- 
Borough  Council,  London.  He  is  now  a  resident  of  New 
York,  where  he  is  well-known  as  a  writer  and  an  authority  on 
Municipal  Problems,  and  as  an  effective  worker  along  the 
lines  of  clean  politics,  • 


icx)  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

vouched  for  by  the  British  Imperial  Board  of  Trade. 
These  facts  and  figures  I  shall  give  exactly  as  they 
were  presented  by  Mr.  Martin  himself.*  After  speak- 
ing of  the  various  small  beginnings  along  these  lines 
that  we  have  made  here,  he  continues,  "  Driven  to 
desperation  by  the  cobra-like  voracity  of  the  lighting 
trust.  New  York  is  erecting  a  plant  to  light  its  streets 
and  public  buildings  (nothing  for  private  consumers 
yet),  and  so  is  beginning  to  toddle  like  a  babe  in  those 
paths  of  business  thrift  in  which  we  shall  see  that 
European  cities  have  been  running  like  athletes  for 
decades. 

"  How  different  has  been  the  record  abroad !  We 
are  thirty  years  behind  the  cities  of  Great  Britain  and 
Germany.  And  from  the  beginning  they  were  more 
business-like  than  we  are  even  now.  To  them  it  would 
seem  the  height  of  economic  folly  to  forbid  a  city  to 
supply  electric  light  to  householders  and  to  allow  a 
private  monopoly  to  retain  its  extortionate  prices  for 
them  while  the  municipality  sought  relief  by  multi- 
plying wires  and  dynamos  for  itself.  The  355  localities 
of  the  United  Kingdom  and  the  numerous  German 
cities  which  own  and  run  electric  lighting  plants,  hold 
the  monopoly  in  their  districts.  Competition  being, 
in  the  nature  of  the  case,  impossible,  the  city  holds  the 
field. 

"  Tlic  same  with  the  gas-works  in  the  two  countries. 
Thrifty  business  management  requires  that  somebody 

*  Proceedings  of  the  Annual  Conference  on  Good  City 
Government,  held  by  the  National  Municipal  League  at  New 
York,  1905. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  loi 

shall  hold  a  monopoly,  and  political  sense  requires  that 
that  somebody  shall  be  the  city  itself.    .    .    . 

"  No  less  than  260  cities  —  Great  Britain  —  supply 
their  whole  population  with  gas-light  and  power.  .  .  . 
They  charge  on  an  average,  taking  large  and  small, 
those  distant  from  and  those  near  to  coal  fields  all  to- 
gether, sixty-four  cents  a  thousand  cubic  feet  for  gas. 
Therefore  the  consumer  is  benefited,  for  the  private 
companies,  on  an  average,  taken  in  the  same  way, 
charge  a  little  over  seventy  cents.  What  they  would 
charge  were  they  not  held  in  check  by  municipal  com- 
petition Cousin  Jonathan  could  tell  John  Bull. 

"  Has  the  taxpayer  been  mulcted  to  make  up  ?  No, 
indeed.  The  net  revenue  has  been  7  per  cent  on  the 
capital,  and,  if  anything,  the  taxpayer  had  been  too  well 
cared  for.  In  Manchester  he  received  $350,000  last 
year  to  help  to  pay  for  the  schools,  etc.,  the  price  of 
gas  being  sixty  cents;  in  Leicester  he  got  $190,000 
with  gas  at  fifty-six  cents,  and  in  the  other  places 
lesser  sums  in  proportion  to  their  size  and  the  success 
of  the  management. 

"  And  the  workman  ?  He  has  not  been  forgotten ; 
for  everywhere  he  gets  slightly  higher  wages  than  he 
would  from  a  private  corporation  and  somewhat  more 
generous  treatment  with  respect  to  hours  and  holidays. 

"  Electric  lighting  tells  the  same  tale.  While  I  am 
writing  this  there  comes  a  return  compiled  by  the 
London  County  Council  showing  that  the  fourteen 
local  authorities  in  the  metropolitan  district  which 
supply  electric  light,  sell  it  at  an  average  of  slightly 
less  than  eight  cents  a  kilowatt  hour,  nearly  20  per 


I02  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

cent  less  than  corporations  chars^e  in  adjacent  districts, 
and  nearly  half  as  much  as  submissive  New  Yorkers 
pay.  And  yet,  after  paying-  all  expenses  and  the  in- 
terest on  the  debt  they  had  a  surplus  of  $1,244,515. 
Clearly  they  understand  the  notion  of  thrift  in  pro- 
duction ;  they  do  not  regard  every  city  department  as 
a  spending  agency. 

"  Space  fails  me  to  tell  the  details  of  the  electric 
Hght  works  of  the  323  local  authorities  in  the  United 
Kingdom  with  their  approximate  capital  of  $150,- 
000.000,  and  of  the  numerous  similar  examples  in 
Germany. 

"  Still  more  remarkable,  especially  to  those  belted 
Spencerians  who  piously  believe  that  a  government  is 
congenitally  incapable  of  managing  a  business  enter- 
prise, must  be  the  record  of  the  street  railway  achieve- 
ments abroad.  For  a  change  of  air,  let  us  leap  the 
North  Sea  and  travel  to  Berlin.    .    .    . 

"  Berlin's  most  illuminating  experience  has  been 
with  her  street  railways.  In  1898,  in  order  to  get  the 
lines  electrified,  the  city  granted  a  charter  for  twenty- 
one  years,  with  these  provisions  included:  i.  Work- 
men to  have  a  ten-hour  day.  2.  Waiting-rooms  at 
transfer  stations  to  be  erected  and  to  be  kept  warmed 
and  lighted.  3.  Uniform  fare  for  the  whole  length  of 
each  line  to  be  2.38  cents.  4.  Eight  per  cent  of  the 
gross  profits,  plus  half  the  net  profits  over  12  per  cent 
on  the  old  capital  and  6  per  cent  on  the  new  capital, 
to  be  paid  to  the  city.  5.  At  the  end  of  the  lease  all  the 
lines  and  the  rolling  stock  to  become  the  property  of  the 
city. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  103 

"  Berlin's  bureaucracy  is  as  able  and  honest  as  any 
in  the  world,  and  it  worked  as  well  as  officials  ever  can 
to  keep  the  corporation  to  the  terms  of  its  bargain. 
In  addition,  an  association  of  citizens  was  formed  to 
watch  and  fight.  But  even  then  the  trouble  involved 
in  protecting  the  citizens  from  the  universal  tendency 
of  franchise  corporations  to  evade  their  obligations  was 
so  harassing  that  after  a  few  months  this  council  of 
taxpayers  decided  that  no  more  franchises  should  be 
granted,  and  that  the  city  should  enter  the  railway 
business.  A  short  strategic  line  which  happened  to  be 
obtainable  was  bought,  other  lines  were  built,  and 
now  the  government  is  an  active  competitor  and  is 
ready  to  take  advantage  of  every  franchise  as  it 
expires.    ... 

"  No  less  than  162  localities  in  Britain  have  shown 
ability,  enterprise  and  foresight  enough  to  take  over 
and  manage  their  own  street-car  lines.  Among  them 
are  London,  Liverpool,  Manchester,  Glasgow,  Birm- 
ingham, Hull,  Newcastle,  Nottingham,  Halifax, 
Leeds,  Sheffield,  Aberdeen,  Brighton,  Dundee,  Yar- 
mouth, Belfast  and  Rochdale.  All  of  them  are  so  well 
satisfied  with  the  results  in  lower  fares  for  the  pas- 
senger, better  conditions  for  the  workman  and  profits 
for  the  taxpayers,  that  no  party  is  even  in  existence 
which  advocates  the  re-surrender  of  any  system  to  a 
private  corporation.  The  mere  whisper  of  such  a  pro- 
posal would  be  a  request  for  political  execution  and 
burial.    .    .    . 

"  London  owns  the  surface  hues  both  north  and 
south  of  the  Thames.    Those  on  the  north  side,  in  a  fit 


I04  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

of  lukewarmness,  when  for  one  term  the  Progressive 
and  Moderate  parties  were  evenly  balanced,  and  to  the 
present  regret  of  the  population  served  by  them,  are 
leased  for  operation  to  a  corporation  on  terms  remun- 
erative to  the  government,  but  obstructive  to  improve- 
ment. The  city  has  electrified  its  lines;  the  corpora- 
tion refuses  to  follow  suit.  So  much  for  that  superior 
corporation  enterprise  of  which  we  hear  ad  nauseam. 

"  During  the  eight  years  of  municipal  ownership 
these  returns  have  been  secured.  On  lines  worked  by 
the  council,  44  per  cent  of  the  passengers  pay  one- 
cent  fares,  43  per  cent  pay  two  cents,  8  per  cent  three 
cents,  4  per  cent  four  cents,  and,  to  compensate  for  the 
99  per  cent  of  the  passengers  who  pay  less  than  our 
straight  five-cent  rate,  just  one  poor  soul,  who  wishes 
to  travel  the  whole  length  of  the  line,  has  to  pay  six 
cents. 

"  In  those  years,  despite  the  increases  of  wages,  the 
annual  holidays  and  the  day's  rest  per  week  given  to 
employees,  the  street  railways  have  contributed  $1,465,- 
000  to  the  general  city  treasury,  $1,670,000  in  reduc- 
tion of  the  debt  on  the  lines,  $330,000  as  a  renewal 
and  reserve  fund  for  the  southern  system,  $450,000  for 
taxes  on  the  southern  system  during  the  last  six  years, 
and  $630,000  in  reduction  of  debt  from  proceeds  of 
sale  of  horses,  etc." 

In  addition  to  the  extremely  low  fares  that  are  paid 
in  German  cities  for  street-car  service,  and  with  far 
better  and  cleaner  and  more  up-to-date  cars  than  we 
have  —  with  a  rare  exception  here  and  there  —  there 
is  this   noticeable  difference.     There  the  number  of 


The  Land  of  Lk'iiig  Men  105 

seats  each  car  contains  is  posted  in  clear  and  artistic 
form  in  the  interior,  and  each  seat  has  its  number  just 
above  it.  As  soon  then  as  all  seats  are  taken  no  more 
passengers  are  permitted  to  enter,  but  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  cars  is  run  to  provide  a  seat  —  that  which  the 
payment  of  a  fare  always  implies  —  for  every  man, 
woman  and  child.  It  makes  a  difference  whether  a 
matter  is  conducted  for  the  comfort  and  convenience 
of  its  patrons  or  for  the  deliberate  purpose  of  extract- 
ing- from  them  the  last  possible  penny,  giving  many 
times  in  return  an  accommodation  that  we,  had  we  the 
civic  pride  and  the  sense  of  justice  that  we  —  and  I 
had  almost  said,  above  all  people  —  should  have, 
would  not  put  up  with  more  than  the  number  of  days 
absolutely  required  to  bring  about  the  change. 

Compare  the  German  citizens'  two-cent  fare  and  his 
guaranteed  seat  and  clean  and  artistic  accommoda- 
tions with  our  five-cent  fare,  even  if  for  half  a  dozen 
blocks,  with  our  many  times  rattling  cars,  sometimes 
even  junk  when  they  are  bought,  and  our  almost  equal 
chances  that  for  this  excessive  fare  we  will  get  in  ex- 
change a  strap  to  hang  onto  in  common  with  a  number 
of  people  standing  equal  to  or  sometimes  greater  than 
the  number  that  the  management  deigns  to  accommo- 
date with  seats,  and  all  the  discomfort  this  means  on 
entering  or  leaving  the  car.  Many  times  merely  room 
to  stand  upon  a  platform  is  all  they  will  permit  us  to 
have,  and  for  a  fare  that  is  at  least  twice  as  high  as 
it  should  be  even  for  the  best  sitting  accommodations. 

They  are  thirsty  leeches,  these  owners  and  managers 
of  our  public  service  corporations.     But  it  is  because 


io6  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

we  permit  it.  Their  blood-sucking  propensities  seem 
never  to  be  satisfied  nor  do  they  decrease,  but  by  virtue 
of  a  great  natural  law  they  are  ever  on  the  increase. 
And  again,  because  we  permit  and  stand  for  it. 

There,  one  finds  almost  without  exception,  vestibuled 
cars  for  the  protection  and  comfort  of  their  motormen. 
This  portion  of  their  citizenship  is  looked  after  the 
same  as  all  others.  But  here  it  is  scarcely  ever  that 
the  management  of  the  roads  adopts  this  plan  volun- 
tarily, and  when  the  demand  of  ordinary  decency  and 
fairness  takes  a  measure  to  the  legislature  compelling 
it,  the  company's  representatives  are  there  with  their 
money  and  their  lobby  to  defeat  it  in  common  with 
practically  every  measure  looking  to  the  comfort  and 
welfare  and  safety  of  those  the  public  service  corpora- 
tion is  supposed  to  serve. 

In  the  matter  of  the  municipal  ownership  and  man- 
agement of  public  utilities,  we  have  heard  much  of  late 
of  Glasgow,  and  not  without  reason.  The  people  of 
Glasgow  have  stood  among  the  most  fearless  and  the 
most  successful  in  managing  for  themselves  their  pub- 
lic utilities.  It  has  been  a  long  time  since  the  franchise 
grabber  has  been  able  to  exploit  the  people  there.  The 
people  of  Glasgow,  strange  to  say,  prefer  to  keep  for 
themselves  the  millions  of  dollars  their  public  utilities 
return  each  year,  instead  of  handing  them  over  to  a 
little  group  of  capitalists,  foreigners  many  times,  and 
whose  only  interest  is  to  take  from  the  city  the  largest 
amount  of  tribute  it  can  exact.  For  over  forty  years, 
or  since  1869,  Glasgow  has  owned  its  own  gas-works. 
As  a  result,  its  people  pay  fifty-three  cents  per  thou- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  107 

sand  feet  for  gas.  Its  municipal  electricity  is  sup- 
plied at  five  and  one-half  cents  per  kilowatt  hour.  All 
the  markets  are  owned  by  the  city.  Private  slaughter- 
houses were  abolished  many  years  ago  and  the  city  is 
now  supplied  by  three  central  establishments.  From 
Lake  Katrine  in  the  Trossachs  it  brings  its  splendid 
water  supply.  The  Water  Department  also  supplies 
hydrauHc  power. 

In  addition  to  its  hospitals,  its  parks,  its  art  galleries, 
museums,  libraries,  botanic  gardens,  art  schools,  tech- 
nical schools,  etc.,  it  has  also  its  winter  gardens,  its  free 
concerts,  facilities  for  golf  and  other  games,  gymnasia 
and  playgrounds  for  the  children.  It  has  also  homes 
for  the  children  of  widows  and  widowers ;  it  has 
depots  for  the  supply  of  sterilized  milk  to  poor  child- 
ren. "  It,"  says  Robert  Donald,  editor  of  the  London 
Chronicle,  "  was  the  persistency  of  Glasgow  that  broke 
down  the  private  telephone  monopoly  in  Great  Britain, 
encouraged  other  municipalities  to  establish  their  own 
system,  and  has  now  led  to  the  complete  nationalization 
of  the  whole  service." 

Speaking  of  Glasgow's  municipal  tramways,  Mr. 
Donald  says :  "  It  will  be  interesting  to  state  the  effect 
of  municipal  ownership,  and  to  explain  the  policy 
which  guided  the  City  Council.  The  company  —  as 
all  private  enterprises  must  do  —  kept  mainly  in  view 
immediate  profits.  Like  most  British  companies,  it 
pursued  a  narrow  policy.  The  keynote  of  the  muni- 
cipal system  was  service,  giving  the  best  possible  to 
the  citizens.  The  municipality  operated  the  roads  in 
the  interest  of  all.     It  greatly  lowered  the  fares,  ban- 


io8  TJic  Land  of  Living  Men 

ished  all  advertisements  from  the  cars,  made  the  names 
of  the  routes  and  destinations  conspicuous,  opened  up 
new  routes  and  linked  up  new  districts.  It  also  con- 
sidered its  employees.  Without  a  contented  staff  there 
cannot  be  a  perfect  service.  So  the  drivers  and  con- 
ductors were  dressed  in  new  uniforms,  their  wages 
were  increased,  their  hours  reduced.  The  citizens  had 
the  feeling  of  personal  possession  when  they  patron- 
ized the  cars,  which  display  the  city's  arms  and  its 
motto  — '  Let  Glasgow  Flourish.'  Civic  patriotism 
asserted  itself  later  on,  when  the  displaced  franchise- 
holders  started  a  competing  service  of  omnibuses, 
which  failed  to  get  support  and  soon  disappeared.  .  .  . 

"  The  fares  in  Glasgow  are  one  cent  for  a  stage  of  a 
little  over  half  a  mile,  and  over  30  per  cent  of  the  pas- 
sengers travel  this  short  distance,  and  bring  in  nearly 
17  per  cent  of  the  receipts.  For  an  average  of  two 
and  a  third  miles,  the  fares  are  two  cents,  and  close  on 
61  per  cent  of  the  passengers  travel  this  distance  and 
contribute  66V2  per  cent  of  the  receipts,  so  that  91 
per  cent  of  the  total  number  carried  pay  two-cent  or 
one-cent  fares.  Only  6.31  per  cent  travel  for  three 
cents.  .  .  .  Less  than  one  per  cent  of  .  the  189,- 
000,000  passengers  last  year  paid  five  cents  or 
more.   .    .    . 

"  The  Glasgow  tramways  are  managed  by  a  Com- 
mittee of  the  City  Corporation,  which  holds  frequent 
meetings  and  reports  regularly  to  the  City  Council. 
It  consists  of  twenty-eight  members,  who  appoint  sub- 
committees for  supervisng  different  departments.  It 
obtains   the   sanction  of  the   Council   for   its  actions. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  109 

The  Council  might  be  regarded  as  the  legislative 
authority,  and  the  Committee  as  the  executive. 

"  From  a  financial  point  of  view  the  Glasgow  under- 
taking has  been  remarkably  successful.  .  .  .  Last 
year's  accounts  indicate  the  healthy  financial  condition 
of  the  tramways.  The  total  receipts,  for  instance, 
amounted  to  $3,624,255,  the  operating  expenses  to 
$1,684,100  —  49  per  cent  of  the  revenue.  The  net  re- 
ceipts showed  a  gross  return  on  the  capital  outlay  of 
17.46  per  cent.  .  .  .  The  accounts  of  the  depart- 
ment are  examined  and  audited  by  independent  pro- 
fessional accountants.  The  accounts  are  published 
with  elaborate  detail,  showing  the  smallest  item  of  ex- 
penditure worked  out  to  percentages  and  comparisons 
with  previous  years. 

"  The  Tramway  Department,  as  I  have  indicated, 
generates  its  own  electric  power,  the  total  cost  of 
which  is  less  than  one  cent  per  kilowatt  hour. 

"  The  Tramways  Committee  delegates  considerable 
power  to  its  general  manager,  who  is  responsible  for 
the  staff  who  form  part  of  the  permanent  civil  service 
in  the  city.  Politics  does  not  influence  appointments, 
and  promotion  is  by  merit.    .    .    . 

"  With  liberal  depreciation  and  reserve  funds  to 
meet  renewals  and  obsolescence,  with  a  redemption 
fund  which  liquidates  the  original  capital  of  the  under- 
taking in  thirty  years,  which  is  at  the  same  time  main- 
tained in  an  efficient  condition  out  of  revenue,  the  City 
Corporation  is  more  than  doing  its  duty  to  the  next 
generation.  Lower  fares  for  long  distances  should  be 
easily  possible  in  the  near  future,  and  there  is  a  pros- 


no  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

pect  that  the  average  fare  will  come  down  to  one  cent. 
A  universal  one-cent  fare  irrespective  of  distance  could 
then  be  adopted." 

Here  then  we  have  a  municipal  enterprise  which 
after  paying  its  annual  interest,  making  its  payments 
into  the  sinking  fund  for  the  redemption  of  its  capital, 
allowing  for  depreciation  and  reserve  fund,  paying  its 
local  tax  assessments  —  for  it  makes  the  same  contri- 
bution to  local  taxation  as  if  it  were  a  private  concern 
■ —  and  which  although  carrying  over  nine-tenths  of  its 
patrons  for  one-cent  and  two-cent  fares,  will  at  the 
end  of  thirty  years  —  about  fifteen  years  now,  pay  for 
itself  entirely  without  one  cent  of  cost  to  the  people  or 
to  the  municipality.  Moreover,  from  the  very  begin- 
ning, it  has  been  more  up-to-date  than  any  privately 
owned  system. 

There  is  indeed  quite  a  contrast  between  the  sturdy 
common-sense  and  business  sagacity  of  our  Scotch 
brethren  and  the  way  we  allow  ourselves  to  be  fleeced 
in  connection  with  practically  all  of  our  public  utilities 
and  the  type  of  service  that  even  then  we  accept. 

We  could  go  into  hundreds  of  other  cities  in  Great 
Britain,  in  Germany,  in  Belgium  and  other  continental 
countries,  as  well  as  into  Australia  and  New  Zealand  ; 
but  in  all  we  would  find  the  same  general  facts  and 
conditions,  varying  slightly  in  detail  simply  by  reason 
of  varying  local  conditions. 

Now  in  all  fairness  I  ask,  if  the  people  in  the  cities  of 
these  countries  can  save  for  themselves  the  returns 
from  these  wonderfully  rich  properties,  aggregating 
hundreds  of  millions  annually,    instead    of    allowing 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  ill 

these  vast  amounts  to  flow  into  the  pockets  of  a  few 
already  oi'erly  rich  individuals,  why  cannot  we  Amer- 
ican people  do  the  same?  If  we  cannot  then  we  must 
admit  that  we  are  less  capable  in  business  management 
and  in  the  matter  of  self-government  than  they.  This 
we  can  scarcely  believe,  especially  when  in  some  re- 
spects we  have  proved  ourselves  even  more  capable. 
I  cannot  believe  that  in  these  matters  we  are  any  less 
capable,  or  that  we  will  show  an  inferior  ability  when 
we  are  sufficiently  alert  and  determined. 

The  reply  is  made,  if  we  had  the  honesty  in  muni- 
cipal administration  that  they  have  in  England,  in 
Scotland,  in  Germany  and  the  various  other  countries 
where  such  splendid  municipal  ownership  results  are 
obtained,  then  we  could  safely  travel  along  the  same 
lines.  True,  but  the  municipalities  in  these  countries 
did  not  always  have  this  characteristic,  but  they  have 
attained  it  by  simply  going  about  it  to  attain  it.  They 
made  the  start  which  in  a  very  definite  way  has  led 
them  to  such  splendid  results.  This  is  the  stock  argu- 
ment presented  against  the  municipal  ownership  and 
management  of  public  utilities,  and  that  it  is  a  strong 
argument  is  held,  and  very  honestly  held,  by  large 
numbers  of  people.  It  is  an  argument,  the  only  argu- 
ment really  worthy  of  consideration,  but  an  argument 
not  without  an  answer.  We  had  better  keep  as  we 
are  lest  we  get  into  conditions  still  worse,  it  is  said. 
But  this  latter  is  no  argument,  and  it  has  no  truth 
even  as  a  statement ;  for  taking  it  all  in  all  it  is  abso- 
lutely impossible  to  have  conditions  in  this  respect 
worse  than  they  are  when  we  consider  the  uniformly 


112  The  Laud  of  Living  Men 

excessively  high  charges  and  the  generally  poor  and 
niadequate  service,  and  the  thousands  of  unnecessary 
killings  and  maimings  that  form  the  total  for  each 
year.  With  this  must  be  combined  the  great  amount 
of  political  corruption  and  debauchery  that  passes 
every  year,  and  coupled  with  it  all  we  must  not  refuse 
to  take  account  of  the  yearly  additions  of  the  millions  to 
the  wealth  of  these  little  groups  of  already  excessively 
rich  men,  many  of  whom  are  thoroughly  unscrupulous 
in  their  dealings  and  in  their  entire  outlook,  as  is  all 
too  clearly  evidenced  by  the  methods  they  have  been 
and  are  continually  using  in  furthering  their  ends,  and 
in  getting  control  of  still  larger  amounts  of  the  people's 
properties,  so  that  they  have  become  a  menace  to  free 
institutions  and  to  the  welfare  of  every  man,  woman 
and  child  in  the  nation.  Matters,  I  repeat,  by  no  stretch 
of  the  imagination,  could  be  any  worse  than  they  are 
unless  in  connection  with  the  taking  over  of  these 
utilities  for  our  common  use,  we  cut  loose  from  all 
common-sense  in  our  methods  of  procedure  and  busi- 
ness management,  which  I  am  sure  we  are  not  liable 
to  do. 

The  present  amount  of  political  corruption  and  graft 
in  our  city  administration  is,  I  am  inclined  to  think, 
one  very  great  argument,  when  we  look  at  it  in  an 
all  round  way,  for  taking  from  private  exploitation 
the  management  of  these  public  utilities ;  for  then  the 
responsibilities  at  City  Hall  will  become  so  great  that 
we,  the  individual  citizen,  shall  be  compelled  to  give 
the  amount  of  time  and  study  and  attention  to  muni- 
cipal  affairs   that   we  should  be  giving,    for   it   is   on 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  113 

account  of  this  lack  that  these  pubHc  service  corpor- 
ations have  been  able  to  have  seated  in  our  city  coun- 
cils the  men  that  they  have  been  able  to  make  their 
deals  with,  and  who,  for  consideration,  have  been 
handing  over  these  public  properties  for  their  private 
enrichment.  This  is  the  great  evil  that  we  must  now 
squarely  face.  It  is  the  sore  that  has  been  gradually 
rotting  and  festering  and  gradually  enveloping  the 
very  vitals  of  our  entire  social  body.  Men's  abilities 
and  real  qualities  assert  themselves  in  the  degree  that 
responsibilities  are  placed  upon  them.  So  with  some- 
thing personal  enough  and  large  enough  and  inspiring 
enough  for  our  splendid  common  citizenship  to  work 
for,  as  this  great  movement  and  all  that  it  carries  with 
it  must  be,  and  especially  if  we  strike  for  it  at  once 
without  delays  or  dickerings,  and  without  any  more 
millions  being  handed  over  or  any  further  alienation 
of  properties  and  rights,  we  should  quickly  make  a 
splendid  beginning  in  purging  our  social  body  of  this 
rapidly  growing  and  vigor-sapping  disease.  And 
when  we  begin  to  experience  the  direct  personal  re- 
sults that  will  follow,  then  I  am  sure  that  we  shall 
never  stop  until  we  have  put  by  the  old,  and  have  put 
into  an  eventually  full  operation  the  new. 

Hand  in  hand  with  the  extension  of  this  movement 
must  go  the  continual  extending  and  perfecting  of  our 
Civil  Service  system,  making  it  continually  stronger 
in  its  requirements  for  admission,  with  perhaps  contin- 
ually greater  leeway  along  the  lines  of  dismissals  for 
proven  incompetency,  and  if  the  management  in  mak- 
ing  removals    cannot    appoint   except    from   the   duly 


114  ^^'<^  La)id  of  Living  Men 

qualified  lists,  there  will  be  but  little  chance  for  the  poli- 
tical machine  methods  gaining  control,  or  even  extend- 
ing themselves  materially. 

There  can  be  no  argument  that  the  financial  burden 
in  connection  with  these  undertakings  would  be  too 
great  for  our  cities  to  assume,  because  under  wise  and 
judicious  management  no  additional  burdens  need  be 
assumed,  and  these  enterprises  can  be  taken  over  and 
improved  and  extended  just  as  they  have  been  in  the 
cities  of  Great  Britain  and  of  Germany  already  noted, 
and  can  be  made  to  pay  for  themselves  out  of  their 
own  earnings  without  involving  a  burden  of  a  single 
dollar  upon  any  individuals  or  upon  any  municipality. 

But  this  entire  matter  of  municipal  ownership  is 
nothing  new  nor  startling  even  with  us ;  it  is  in  fact 
merely  an  extension  of  the  municipal  ownership  meth- 
ods that  we  already  have,  including  municipal  water 
supplies  —  practically  all  of  which  are  now  or  soon 
will  be  under  complete  municipal  ownership  and  man- 
agement. So  our  fire  departments,  our  street-cleaning 
departments,  our  parks,  and  our  public  schools.  Are 
these  and  many  others  that  could  be  mentioned  not 
managed  more  economically  and  satisfactorily  and 
more  uniformly  for  the  public  welfare  than  if  they 
were  left  to  private  enterprise?  Who  is  there  bold 
enough  to  say  at  all  seriously,  that  any  of  these  public 
utilities  should  be  turned  over  to  private  enterprise? 

But  to  be  supplied  at  satisfactory  rates  and  in  an 
all  round  satisfactory  manner  with  lighting  and  heat- 
ing facilities,  gas  and  electricity,  street  car  and 
telephone  facilities,  etc.,  is  just  as  important,  for  they 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  115 

are  just  as  much   necessities   as  those  already  men- 
tioned. 

So  far  as  the  question  of  right  in  the  people's  taking 
over  and  managing  these  utilities  for  their  own  ben- 
efit is  concerned,  it  is  scarcely  worthy  of  consideration, 
for  we  all  know  that  it  exists.  Almost  a  hundred 
forms  of  private  ownership  in  the  form  of  tolls,  etc., 
have  gone.  We  can  proceed  by  way  of  direct  pur- 
chase, mutual  agreement  in  regard  to  price,  if  it  is 
found  advantageous  to  buy  the  private  companies  out. 
The  more  that  can  be  done  in  this  w'ay  the  better. 
Then  we  can  proceed  by  way  of  condemnation  pro- 
ceedings, through  the  right  of  eminent  domain.  It 
is  a  recognized  principle  in  government  that  the  right 
or  desire  of  the  individual  is  always  subservient  to 
the  public  good.  If  I  own  a  particular  piece  of  prop- 
erty and  though  I  may  think  very  highly  of  it,  if  a 
street  is  to  be  opened  that  will  be  for  the  public  benefit, 
or  if  a  railroad  owned  even  by  private  individuals  is  to 
be  constructed,  or  a  public  building  erected,  the  portion 
of  the  property  required  is  taken,  or  all,  if  all  is  neces- 
sary, and  I  am  given  compensation  for  it  according  to 
its  real  value,  and  not  in  accordance  with  whatever  esti- 
mate of  its  value  I  may  be  pleased  to  place  upon  it. 
Here  is  something  to  be  noted  when  these  public  prop- 
erties are  taken  over  to  be  managed  for  all  the  people  — 
they  will  be  taken  at  their  real  values,  not  at  any  fiat 
values,  and  a  shrinking  in  values  to  the  tune  -of  many 
millions  will  be  witnessed.  The  people  are  always 
pre-eminently  fair  in  matters  such  as  these.  They 
will  want  to  pay  for  every  dollar  of  real  value  taken, 


Ii6  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

but  they  will  not  pay  the  prices  that  the  companies, 
almost  without  exception,  will  ask.  The  millions  in 
watered  stocks  will  be  of  no  value  to  the  people  as 
they  are  of  no  value  to  them  now,  but  on  the  contrary, 
are  the  cause  of  their  parting  with  many  a  hard- 
earned  dollar.  We  will  pay  and  willingly  every  dol- 
lar any  property  is  worth,  but  we  should  not  pay  a 
dollar  more  than  its  real  value  calls  for. 

It  is  purely  a  matter  of  justice,  a  clearly  written 
duty  —  that  which  is  intended  to  serve  all  the  people 
in  common  should  be  so  managed  that  all  the  people 
are  served.  As  it  is,  the  millions  are  exploited  by  the 
few  hundreds,  and  worse,  for  in  many  cases  they  are 
plainly  plundered  by  them.  And  all  these  years  we  have 
been  quietly  submitting  to  it  and  acting  as  if  we  knew 
no  better.  We  have  been  learning  very  rapidly  of  late, 
however. 

Sq  conservative  and  able  a  business  man  as  ex- 
Governor  Douglas  of  Massachusetts  in  one  of  his 
later  messages  to  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  had 
this  to  say  in  regard  to  the  matter  we  are  considering : 
"  I  recommend  legislation  giving  to  cities  and  towns 
wider  powers  in  the  conduct  of  business  which  derives 
its  profit  from  the  necessities  of  the  community.  The 
powers  already  granted  have  proved  the  economy  and 
wisdom  of  the  conduct  of  such  business  by  the  com- 
munity itself.    .    .    . 

"  In  many  cases  of  privately  owned  public  service 
corporations  the  rates,  fares  and  prices  charged  are  too 
high.  The  public  is  entitled  to  reasonable  charges  for 
the  services  of  these  monopolies.     It  will  be  far  more 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  iiy 

likely  to  obtain  service  at  reasonable  prices  if  it  has 
the  right  to  do  business  on  its  own  account. 

"  When  a  public  service  corporation  is  giving  good 
service  at  fair  rates  it  is  not  likely  to  be  disturbed. 
When  its  rates  and  prices  are  unreasonable,  it  should, 
in  the  interest  of  the  public  welfare,  be  disturbed. 

"  It  is  not  disputed  that,  as  a  rule,  private  corpor- 
ations conduct  their  business  more  economically  than 
do  public  corporations.  It  is,  however,  disputed  that 
the  public  usually  obtains  the  benefit  of  this  economi- 
cal management.  In  most  cases,  therefore,  the  publicly 
owned  and  operated  waterworks,  sewers,  gas  and  elec- 
tric lighting  plants  have  given  the  public  cheaper  and 
better  service  than  the  privately  owned  concern. 

"  For  these  reasons,  I  ask  the  Legislature  to  give 
every  reasonable  facility  to  those  municipalities  which 
desire  to  conduct  their  own  public  service  utilities. 

"  Appreciating  the  difficulties  of  obtaining  good  busi- 
ness management  and  economical  production  by  mun- 
icipalities, I  urge  you,  when  making  the  laws  for  mun- 
icipal ownership,  to  so  frame  them  that  the  evils  of 
political  management  will,  so  far  as  possible,  be  elim- 
inated. With  proper  legislation  it  should  be  possible 
to  obtain  most  of  the  benefits  without  any  of  the  evils 
of  privately  owned  and  operated  public  service  cor- 
porations." 

Of  course,  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  at  first  the 
results  will  in  every  case  be  all  that  are  looked  for 
by  the  most  sanguine.  Some  mistakes  will  be  made. 
But  this  is  one  of  the  ways  in  which  greater  ability 
in  the  conduct  of  these  enterprises  will  be  grown.    And 


ii8  Til c  Land  of  Living  Men 

then  we  already  have  such  splencUd  examples  to  learn 
from.  It  will  undoubtedly  require  careful  and  wise 
business  management  to  obtain  in  all  cases  the  highest 
results. 

I  think  another  paragraph  from  ex-Governor  Doug- 
las's inaugural  address  may  not  be  amiss  here :  "  If, 
when  guarded  by  as  careful  and  wise  legislation  as 
is  possible,  certain  municipalities  should  fail  in  their 
attempt  to  give  better  and  cheaper  service  to  the  public, 
it  will  be  because  the  citizens  of  these  municipalities 
do  not  insist  upon  having  their  municipal  plants  con- 
ducted in  a  businesslike  manner.  The  principle  of 
municipal  ownership  is  sound.  In  cases  where  unsat- 
isfactory results  are  produced  the  fault  is  usually  to 
be  found  in  a  laxity  of  administration.  I  believe  that 
every  such  franchise  taken  over  by  the  public  relieves 
the  people  from  possible  exaction,  practised  for  private 
profit.  With  the  low  rates  at  which  municipalities 
can  borrow  and  the  elimination  of  dividends,  the  rates 
must  be  inevitably  lowered,  and  the  people  become 
alone  responsible  for  the  efficiency  of  the  service." 

So  far,  in  this  part,  we  have  dealt  entirely  with  the 
matter  of  the  public  ownership  and  management  of 
those  utilities  that  pertain  especially  to  our  cities.  The 
number  of  people  is  rapidly  growing  among  us  who 
are  also  asking  why  we  should  not  have  a  national  and 
state  ownership  and  management  or  control  of  those 
public  utilities  that  pertain  to  all  the  people,  the  same 
as  this  principle  is  being  extended  in  Great  Britain  and 
various  Continental  countries,  so  as  to  include  tele- 
graph, express,  telephone,  railroad  enterprises,  and  thus 


The  Land  of  Liznng  Men  119 

secure  for  the  people  better  service  and  lower  rates 
such  as  the  people  in  these  other  countries  are  enjoying. 
There  is  no  reason  why  this  should  not  to  a  judicious 
extent  come  about,  and  that  it  will,  is  as  certain  as  that 
the  principle  of  municipal  ownership  will  eventually 
so  grow  and  extend  itself  as  practically  to  include 
every  city  in  the  nation. 

The  principle  of  state  and  national  ownership  and 
control  will  grow  and  extend  itself  perhaps  more  tar- 
dily, but  its  eventual  growth  and  triumph  is  just  as 
certain.  The  beginnings  will  be  made  in  connection 
with  the  managing  of  the  municipal  utilities  for  the 
benefit  of  the  people,  and  as  it  is  seen  what  gains  will 
result  from  these,  the  demand  for  its  extension  so  as 
to  include  all  the  "  natural  monopolies  "  that  are  now 
operated  purely  for  private  gain  will  continually  in- 
crease. If  this  can  be  done  in  other  countries  and  so 
successfully,  as  is  now  being  done,  then  it  can  be  done 
here,  unless  again  in  this,  we  are  willing  to  be  classed 
as  incompetents  as  compared  with  our  British  and  Con- 
tinental brethren.  And  if  it  can  be  done  so  successfully 
and  to  the  great  gain  of  the  people  in  one  line,  then  it 
can  be  done  also  successfully  and  to  the  gain  of  the 
people  in  lines  of  a  more  or  less  kindred  nature. 

Here  again,  fortunately,  we  do  not  have  to  deal  with 
any  matters  of  theory  or  speculation  merely.  For 
years  the  United  States  Government  has  conducted 
a  great  public  utility  for  its  people,  and  during  all  the 
years  it  has  been  in  operation  it  has  given  them  a  ser- 
vice incomparably  better  than  that  of  any  private  com- 
pany or  companies  even  by  the  wildest  stretch  of  the 


120  TJic  Land  of  Living  Men 

imagination  would  have  been,  and  at  prices  a  mere 
fraction  of  what  we  would  be  now  paying  as  a  nec- 
essary tribute  to  corporate  greed.  We  can,  through 
this  splendid  government  service,  send  a  message  by 
postal  card  or  a  much  longer  one  by  letter  to  practi- 
cally any  portion  of  the  entire  world  for  a  two-cent  fee. 
Now,  in  all  fairness  I  ask,  what  would  be  exacted 
for  this  service  if  this  public  necessity  were  under  the 
control  of  private  companies?  Judging  from  their 
charges  in  other  things  — express,  telegraph,  freight, 
can  we  reasonably  expect  that  the  one  would  be  a  fee 
of  less  than  five  cents,  or  the  other  less  than  ten  ?  That 
is,  even  for  the  shorter  foreign  services,  with  still  an 
additional  fee  for  the  longer  distances.  In  addition 
to  the  low  fees  we  now  pay,  compared  to  what  we 
would  pay  under  private  management,  we  get  a  ser- 
vice that  is  as  prompt  and  efficient  as  it  can  reasonably 
be  made.  Dependent  upon  private  concerns,  our  mail 
matter  would  be  carried  at  their  convenience.  At 
first  competition  in  connection  with  some  of  the  routes 
would  insure  us  against  the  worst  of  service,  but  later 
on  when  the  various  concerns  through  mutual  self- 
interest  had  pooled  their  interests  or  had  consolidated 
into  one  huge  monopoly,  then  we  should  be  practically 
at  the  mercy  of  this  concern,  the  same  as  millions  of 
people  all  over  the  country  are  at  this  very  hour  at 
the  mercy  of  other  concerns  of  a  similar  public  nature. 
We  appreciate  too  much  our  one-cent  and  two-cent 
fees  for  domestic  postal  card  and  letter,  with  the  large 
leeway  wc  have,  so  far  as  amount  is  concerned  in  con- 
nection with  the  latter. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  121 

Then  the  conveniences  we  have  for  small  merchan- 
dise many  times  allows  us  to  save  ourselves  from  the 
demands  of  the  privately  owned  express  companies 
when  the  element  of  distance  enters.  We  should  be 
paying  them  still  more  were  it  not  for  the  benign  and 
restraining  influences  the  Post-Office  Department  ex- 
erts over  their  calculations. 

How  about  the  revelations  in  connection  with  the 
irregularities  and  dishonesty  in  the  Post-Office  Depart- 
ment that  came  to  the  public  knowledge  some  time 
ago,  I  hear  it  asked.  There  were  irregularities  and 
there  was  corruption.  The  very  fact,  however,  that  we 
heard  so  much  of  it  and  the  fact  that  the  perpetrators 
of  it  were  arraigned  and  brought  to  justice,  argues 
well  for  such  government  ownership  and  adminis- 
tration. Moreoer,  I  venture  this  assertion,  that  the 
aggregate  of  losses  sustained  by  the  public  through  this 
agency,  have  not  equalled  one  thousandth  part  of  the 
amount  of  debauchery  and  corruption  that  would  have 
resulted  were  this  public  service  utility  allowed  to  be 
in  the  hands  of  private  individuals  or  companies,  and 
therefore  run  from  beginning  to  end  for  private  gain. 
I  also  venture  this  statement,  that  all  the  losses  sus- 
tained through  dishonesty  and  fraud  in  our  govern- 
ment Post-Office  Department,  from  the  first  year  of 
its  operation  down  to  the  present  time,  have  not 
equalled  —  to  be  conservative  —  one  five  thousandth 
part  of  the  amounts  that  the  profits  of  private  man- 
agement would  have  taken  from  us,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  uniformly  inferior  type  of  service  furnished,  com- 
pared to  that  which  we  have  been  and  are  enjoying. 


122  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

Can  any  one  present  what  would  be  regarded  as  any 
reasonable  argument,  and  one  that  would  be  accepted 
by  any  number  of  reasonable  and  thinking  men,  why 
the  government  cannot  carry  for  us  our  express  pack- 
ages through  the  medium  of  a  parcels  post,  and  attend 
to  our  telegraph  and  telephone  needs,  as  successfully 
as  it  now  attends  to  our  postal  needs,  and  the  same 
as  other  people  through  their  central  governments  are 
having  done  for  them  with  a  better  service  and  at 
much  lower  rates  than  they  were  able  at  any  time  to 
get  from  their  former  private  companies?  Certainly 
no  one  of  these  is  as  difficult  and  as  complex  as  the 
service  the  government  is  already  performing  for  us. 
And  to  take  these  over  simply  as  extensions  of  the 
department  already  in  operation  would  be  by  no  means 
a  difficult  task.  Those  who  are  familiar  with  the 
parcels  post  in  Great  Britain  for  example,  and  its  nom- 
inal "  peoples  "  charges,  compared  to  the  tribute  lev- 
ied by  our  express  companies,  appreciate  what  this 
change  will  mean.  The  absurdity  of  a  minimum  ex- 
press charge  here  being  twenty-five  cents !  It  would 
make  an  Englishman's  or  a  German's  or  a  Belgian's 
blood  boil  to  have  such  a  tribute  levied  upon  him, 
with  no  other  reason  than  for  the  purpose  of  Hning 
the  pockets  of  a  few  already  wealthy  company  owners. 
What  would  they  say  to  such  as  this  for  example :  A 
few  weeks  ago  through  the  breaking  of  some  minor 
parts  of  a  cultivator  I  was  compelled  to  send  to  the 
factory  for  new  pieces.  The  cost  of  the  parts  was  a 
(k^llar  and  twenty-five  cents.  The  bulk  was  less  than 
half  a  cubic  foot,  or  perhaps  equal  to  that  of  an  ordi- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  123 

nary  pasteboard  shoe  box.  The  distance  was  consid- 
erably under  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles.  The  tariff 
levied  by  the  express  company  was  seventy-five  cents. 
The  time  taken  to  bring  the  parcel  was  considerably 
more  than  twice  the  length  of  time  it  could  have 
been  carried  and  delivered  in.  The  company  or 
companies  could  have  carried  such  a  parcel  for  a 
charge  of  twelve  to  twenty  cents  and  made  a  handsome 
profit. 

And  then  when  the  service  is  poor  or  careless,  in 
addition  to  being  excessively  high  in  its  charges,  there 
is  no  recourse  for  the  people,  for  public  service  com- 
panies have  no  ethical  sense  that  would  lead  them  to 
any  amicable  settlement  when  the  shipper  suffers  either 
great  inconvenience  or  loss.  He  has  no  recourse  ex- 
cept to  take  the  matter  into  the  courts,  which  does  not 
pay  unless  the  amount  involved  is  large,  and  even 
then  he  is  subjected  to  delays  and  dodges  of  almost 
every  conceivable  type.  It  is  the  policy  of  such  cor- 
porations never  to  pay  out  a  cent  unless  it  is  utterly 
impossible  for  them  to  find  any  way  of  avoiding  it. 

Here  is  another  concrete  example  of  a  frequent  type 
of  private  corporation  methods.  Some  time  ago  I 
had  sixteen  hundred  young  fruit  trees  shipped  from 
a  point  a  few  miles  south  of  Rochester,  New  York,  to 
a  point  thirty-four  miles  from  New  York  City  to  the 
north.  It  was  a  lot  of  specially  selected,  high-grade 
trees.  The  nature  of  the  goods  was  known  to  the 
railroad  company.  The  cases  were  labelled  "  perish- 
able, without  delay,  do  not  allow  to  freeze."  It  was 
in  early  November.    The  time  in  which  they  could  have 


124  '^^^^  Land  of  Living  Men 

been  carried  handily  with  a  service  organized  for  the 
people's  convenience  and  welfare  would  have  been  a 
period  of  not  more  than  five  or  six  days.  They  were 
on  the  way  between  fourteen  and  fifteen  days.  The 
last  two  or  three  days  of  their  transit  they  encount- 
ered an  intensely  cold  and  stormy  period.  Though 
ready  to  plant  them  so  as  to  have  them  in  readiness 
for  an  early  pushing  out  in  the  spring,  I  was  com- 
pelled to  heal  them  into  the  ground  for  the  winter,  not 
knowing  until  spring  should  tell,  whether  they  would 
come  out  of  the  ground  in  a  normal  or  in  a  damaged 
condition.  Large  numbers  proved  to  be  damaged  and 
a  block  of  several  hundred  had  to  be  thrown  out  en- 
tirely. The  various  inconveniences  and  losses  incident 
upon  this  were,  after  the  lapse  of  several  months,  put 
into  the  form  of  a  letter  with  an  offer  to  accept  a  very 
reasonable  settlement,  provided  it  were  made  promptly, 
and  sent  to  the  claim  agent  of  the  railroad.  The 
amount  was  considerably  less,  taking  all  things  into 
consideration,  than  the  damage  really  sustained.  In 
the  course  of  several  months  several  letters  passed.  I 
finally  received  the  announcement  —  final,  the  agent 
indicated  —  that  a  careful  and  thorough  examination 
of  the  case  had  been  made,  and  that  they  would  de- 
cline my  oiTer  as  they  found  themselves  not  liable,  for 
another  road  into  whose  hands  they  had  given  the 
freight,  had  carried  it,  they  found,  as  long  a  period 
as  they.  Though  prefering  otherwise,  an  effort  to 
secure  justice  can  now  be  had  only  by  taking  the  mat- 
ter into  the  courts.  But  this  is  simply  an  example  of 
but  one  type  of  inconvenience  and  loss  that  thousands 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  125 

upon  thousands  of  people  are  being-  put  to  every  year, 
in  addition  to  charges  in  practically  every  case  higher 
than  they  should  be,  because  we  are  sufficiently  stupid 
as  to  continue  to  allow  private  concerns  to  get  posses- 
sion of  and  create  many  times  into  a  monopoly,  the 
public  service  that  should  be  conducted  by  the  people 
through  their  agent,  the  government,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  people.  • 

Another  concrete  case  by  way  of  a  personal  experi- 
ence was  that  of  another  road  in  taking  seventeen  days 
to  carry  some  goods  from  a  point  twelve  miles  out 
of  Boston  to  the  same  destination  —  thirty-four  miles 
north  of  New  York  City.  I  dare  say  there  is  scarcely 
a  reader  of  these  lines  who  has  not  had  similar  experi- 
ences with  the  privately  owned  corporations  that 
abound  in  the  country.  I  suppose  that  if  all  could 
be  chronicled,  especially  with  all  the  adjectives  that  es- 
caped at  the  time,  books  could  be  quickly  compiled 
that  would  form  a  very  large  public  library. 

The  people  of  other  countries  have  for  years  been 
taking  these  utilities,  such  as  express,  telegraph,  tel- 
ephone, railroads,  etc.,  out  of  the  hands  of  private  con- 
trol and  monopoly  and  through  their  central  govern- 
ments are  supplying  themselves  with  these  services  in 
practically  every  case  greatly  to  their  advantage.  Out- 
side of  the  United  States  over  two-thirds  of  the  rail- 
road mileage  of  the  world  is  owned  and  operated  by 
the  governments  of  the  various  countries.  Ours  is 
almost  the  only  great  country  now  in  the  world  that 
does  not  own  and  operate  the  telegraph  lines.  Those 
who  are  acquainted  with  the  telegraph  service  in  Great 


126  TJic  Land  of  Living  Men 

Britain  know  and  appreciate  the  fact  that  there  they 
can  send  messages  for  twelve  cents  to  any  part  of 
Great  Britain,  for  which  the  charges  here  would  in 
no  case  be  less  than  twenty-five  cents,  and  sometimes 
would  reach  as  high  as  forty  and  fifty  cents  for  the 
same  distance  covered.  In  addition  to  this,  one  is  fur- 
nished there  with  a  much  more  convenient  service 
both  al  the  point  of  sending  and  in  the  matter  of  deliv- 
ery, for  it  has  all  the  conveniences  of  the  Postal  De- 
partment with  which  it  is  connected.  The  fact  that 
our  minimum  telegraph  charge  is  twenty-five  cents  is 
quite  as  ridiculous  as  that  our  minimum  express  charge 
is  also  twenty-five  cents. 

In  Great  Britain  the  history  of  the  telegraph  under 
government  ownership  has  been  one  of  continual  en- 
largement and  development  with  the  thought  of  the 
widest  and  best  possible  service  for  all  the  people, 
and  with  the  least  possible  charges.  The  result  is 
that  it  has  become  a  great  public  convenience  serving 
all  classes  of  the  people.  The  charges  here  under 
private  ownership  are  absolutely  prohibitive  for  such 
uses  as  are  made  of  it  there  by  all  the  people  in 
common. 

There  was  a  great  fight  made  on  the  part  of  the  pri- 
vate companies  to  retain  their  grip  upon  it  when  the 
telegraph  service  was  taken  over  by  the  government. 
Many  arguments  were  used,  and  similar  to  many 
encountered  here,  against  the  government  doing  the 
same  in  connection  with  these  same  general  utilities. 
The  private  owners  and  those  in  any  way  allied  with 
them    and    influenced    by    them,    were    fairly   bursting 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  127 

with  reasons  why  the  government  should  not  perform 
these  services.  Among  them  —  It  was  not  the  gov- 
ernment's business  to  telegraph ;  the  rates  would  be 
higher ;  it  would  not  be  as  progressive  in  its  manage- 
ment as  the  private  companies ;  there  w^ould  be  a  deficit 
to  be  met ;  the  use  of  the  telegraph  would  be  less ; 
there  would  be  less  of  a  stimulus  to  invention,  and 
hence,  no  new  improvements ;  it  would  be  an  arbitrary 
and  unjust  interference  with  private  rights  for  the  gov- 
ernment to  invade  the  field  of  private  business,  etc.,  etc. 
In  spite  of  these  and  their  arguments,  and  in  spite  of 
every  effort  made  by  the  private  companies  to  impede 
and  to  prevent  the  movement,  the  telegraph  system  of 
England  was  bought  by  the  government  and  made  a 
part  of  the  postal  system  in  1870. 

As  to  the  results  in  this  case,  they  have  been  formu- 
lated by  a  very  able  authority  as  follows  :*  "  The  im- 
mediate results  of  public  ownership  were:  First,  a  re- 
duction in  rates  of  one-third  to  one-half ;  second,  a 
vast  increase  of  business  and  work  done  by  the  tele- 
graph, doubling  in  the  first  year  after  the  transfer ; 
third,  a  great  extension  of  lines  into  the  less  populous 
districts,  so  as  to  give  the  whole  people  the  benefit  of 
telegraphic  communication ;  fourth,  large  additional 
facilities  by  opening  more  offices,  locating  offices  more 
conveniently,  and  making  every  post-office  a  place 
where  a  telegram  may  be  deposited ;  fifth,  a  consider- 

*  The  late  ex-Governor  Altgeld,  of  Illinois,  was  a  most 
competent  and  earnest  advocate  of  the  principle  of  public 
ownership  and  management  of  all  public  service  utilities  and 
"  natural   monopolies." 


128  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

able  economy  by  placing  the  telegraph  service  with  the 
mail  service,  under  single  control,  thus  avoiding  use- 
less duplications  in  offices,  etc. ;  sixth,  a  marked  im- 
provement in  the  service,  the  aim  of  the  post-office 
being  good  service,  not  dividends ;  seventh,  a  decided 
gain  to  employees  in  pay,  in  shorter  hours  and  in  tenure 
of  office ;  eighth,  in  unprecedented  advantages  to  the 
press  for .  cheap  and  rapid  transmission  of  news  at 
the  same  time  freeing  it  from  the  pressure  of  a  power 
that  claimed  the  right  to  dictate  the  views  and  opin- 
ions it  should  express ;  ninth,  the  development  of  busi- 
ness and  strengthening  of  social  ties,  such  as  ties  of 
kinship  and  friendship ;  tenth,  the  removal  of  a  great 
antagonism  and  the  cessation  of  the  vexations  and 
costly  conflict  it  had  caused  between  the  companies 
and  the  people. 

"  These  were  the  immediate  results.  Now,  after  over 
a  quarter  of  a  century  of  use,  the  following  further  re- 
sults are  noticeable :  First,  a  further  reduction  of  nearly 
one-half  in  the  average  cost  of  a  message;  second^ 
while  the  population  increased  only  25  per  cent,  the 
telegraph  business  has  increased  1,000  per  cent;  third, 
a  six-fold  extension  of  lines  and  a  fifty-fold  increase 
of  facilities ;  fourth,  a  steady  policy  of  expanding  and 
improving  the  service,  adopting  new  inventions,  put- 
ting underground  hundreds  of  miles  of  wire  that  for- 
merly ran  over  houses  and  streets,  etc. ;  fifth,  a  system- 
atic effort  to  elevate  labor,  resulting  in  a  progressive 
amelioration  of  the  condition  of  employees  in  respect 
to  wages,  hours,  tenure,  promotion,  privileges,  etc. ; 
sixth,  satisfaction  with  the  telegraph  service,  even  on 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  129 

the  part  of  conservatives  who  objected  to  the  change 
before  it  was  made." 

Gaining  valuable  knowledge  and  experience  in  con- 
nection with  this  great  national  public  utility,  Great 
Britain  is  taking  under  government  ownership  and 
management  her  entire  telephone  system  —  a  portion 
of  which  was  taken  some  years  ago.  The  people  are 
already  great  gainers,  and  I  dare  say  the  government 
will  carry  out  the  same  plan  of  greatly  extending  and 
making  more  convenient  for  the  people  this  great  pub- 
lic utility  also. 

Can  we  not  see  a  very  great  similarity  between  this 
government-owped  and  administered  utility  —  Great 
Britain's  telegraph  system  —  and  our  own  government- 
owned  and  administered  postal  system?  Are  not  the 
constantly  increasing  facilities  for  the  ever  greater 
convenience  and  accommodation  of  the  people,  the  suc- 
cessful business  administration,  the  uniformly  low 
charges  in  our  system  closely  akin  to  the  above  detail 
of  results  in  connection  with  Great  Britain's  national 
telegraph  system? 

And  as  important  even  as  are  these  results  is  the  fact 
that  this  makes  one  less  great  source  of  public  bribery 
and  corruption  and  debauchery ;  for  the  fact  that  pri- 
vately owned  companies  have  gained  control  of  most 
of  our  public  service  utilities,  and  their  efforts  to  retain 
and  to  continually  increase  the  scope  of  their  holdings 
is  the  greatest  source  of  our  notorious  political  cor- 
ruption. 

As  have  been  the  history  and  results  of  our  govern- 
ment postal  system,  Great  Britain's  government  tele- 


130  TJic  Land  of  Living  Men 

graph  system,  so  have  been  in  a  general  way  the  history 
and  results  of  the  government  owned  and  controlled 
railroads  of  Germany,  Belgium,  New  Zealand,  Aus- 
tralia, and  many  other  countries  that  have  brought  or 
that  are  bringing  under  government  ownership  and 
management  their  railroads. 

So  free  have  public  service  corporations  been  in  the 
use  of  money  in  bribing  and  corrupting  public  officials 
to  get  the  people's  public  property  into  their  own  hands, 
that  there  comes  a  time  when  even  they  have  to  pay 
the  penalty  in  having  to  part  with  a  greater  amount  of 
their  profits  than  they  would  voluntarily  pay.  They 
have  created  such  a  debauched  condition  in  some  city 
councils  and  state  legislatures  that  their  first  offers  of 
two  thousand  or  five  thousand  dollars  for  votes  in  con- 
nection with  some  particular  measures,  have  so  em- 
boldened the  members  as  time  has  passed,  that  they 
have  demanded  as  high  as  fifty  thousand  and  even 
more,  for  votes  in  connection  with  other  measures. 
Sometimes  we  hear  the  managers  of  corporations  com- 
plaining that  they  are  held  up,  blackmailed,  by  coun- 
cilmen  and  legislators.  Their  methods  have  insti- 
tuted such  foulness  and  venality  that  sometimes  in 
the  end  it  does  amount  to  this.  They  have  themselves 
to  blame.  The  more  bold  have  been  known  at  times 
to  pay  with  checks ;  those  more  cautious  and  wary  pay 
with  money ;  the  still  more  cautious  and  wary  give 
dividend-paying  stocks  in  the  company  or  some  allied 
company,  and  pledge  in  addition  their  continued  politi- 
cal safe-keeping  to  the  member,  and  others  adopt  still 
Other  methods. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  131 

There  are  those  who  get  elected  to  our  city  councils 
and  state  legislatures  for  the  sole  purpose  of  making 
deals  with  these  corporations,  and  getting  out  of  the 
office  in  this  way  the  largest  amounts  they  can  get. 
Corporations  then  again,  have  their  own  particular  men 
elected,  with  whom  they  have  made  a  deal  before  elec- 
tion, or  with  whom  there  is  the  understanding  that  they 
command  their  services  after  their  election. 

Some  corporations  are  known  to  have  in  city  coun- 
cils and  state  legislatures  a  member  whom  they  support 
and  pay  to  look  regularly  after  their  interests.  Some- 
times to  disarm  suspicion  a  very  good  type  of  citizen  — 
whom  they  judge  weak  on  the  itchy  palm  side  —  is 
induced  to  accept  nomination,  his  election  is  secured 
by  them,  and  he  is  then  manipulated  according  to  their 
interests.  Political  machines  do  the  same.  Once  in  a 
great  while  they  get  fooled  by  not  rightly  calculating 
their  man.  Such  was  the  case  when  the  machine  in  St. 
Louis  promoted  the  selection  of  Joseph  W.  Folk  for 
the  office  of  Circuit  Attorney.  Mr.  Folk  at  the  time  said 
substantially  that  if  elected  he  must  have  a  free  hand, 
and  that  he  would  conduct  the  affairs  of  the  office  in  his 
own  way.  They  thought  he  was  merely  talking.  Some, 
for  their  error  in  calculation  in  this  case,  are  now  serv- 
ing good  penitentiary  time."^ 

Various  public  service  corporations  are  known  to 
contribute  very  liberally  to  one  or  the  other  political 
party  in  campaign  funds.  Usually  it  is  the  dominant 
party  in  either  state  or  city  according  as  their  needs 
lie.     Sometimes  to  be  on  the  safe  side  they  are  large 

*  Supplementary,  IV. 


132  The  Laud  of  Living  Men 

contributors  to  the  campaign  funds  of  both  parties. 
Their  profits  taken  directly  from  the  people's  pockets 
arc  generally  so  enormous  that  they  can  afford  to  do 
this,  in  addition  to  maintaining  large  corruption  funds 
for  definite  action  later  on. 

That  there  are  others  —  and  the  numbers  now  are 
very  large  —  who  realize  these  facts  is  evidenced  by 
the  following  expression  from  the  editor  of  a  leading 
magazine :  ''  The  chief  agencies  of  corruption,  bribery, 
and  debauchery  of  the  legislative,  executive  and  ju- 
dicial departments  of  government,  as  has  been  shown 
time  and  again,  are  found  in  the  public  service  cor- 
porations which  operate  natural  monopolies  or  those 
utilities  in  which  all  the  people  are  interested.  To  des- 
troy this  fountain-head  of  political  corruption  and  to 
give  to  all  the  people  all  the  benefits  flowing  from  the 
operation  of  public  utilities  or  natural  monopolies,  the 
city,  state  and  nation,  or  the  people,  should  own  and 
operate  them  for  the  good  of  the  community  at  large." 

The  difference  in  the  policies  and  the  management 
of  the  various  public  service  utilities  in  those  countries 
where  they  are  moving,  and  so  successfully,  along  the 
lines  of  public  ownership  and  operation,  or  manage- 
ment, and  the  prevailing  policies  and  methods  of 
management  among  us  should  I  think  be  noted.  In 
case  of  the  former,  the  best* and  the  most  up-to-date 
service,  with  a  minimum  of  cost  to  the  people  is  the 
policy.  Not  the  making  of  large  dividends,  but  using 
what  would  otherwise  be  larger  profits  for  the  greater 
convenience  and  better  accommodation  of  the  largest 
number  of  people  at  the  lowest  reasonable  cost. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  133 

In  case  of  transit,  for  example,  municipal  or  state,  the 
opening  up  of  sections  and  properties  in  new  and 
outlying-  districts,  thus  affording  desirable  and  real 
homes  to  large  numbers  of  people  who  otherwise 
would  be  compelled  to  remain  as  tenants  in  the  already 
densely  populated  portions,  because  unable  economi- 
cally to  reach  the  districts  where  they  can  have  real 
homes  of  which  they  may  become  owners.  It  is  the 
welfare  of  the  people,  of  the  largest  numbers  of  the 
people,  that  is  continually  sought  after.  And  what 
do  we  find  here?  We  find  these  utilities,  with  a  minor 
exception  here  and  there,  organized  and  managed  with 
an  eye  single  to  the  largest  dividends  that  can  be  ex- 
tracted from  the  people,  and  many  times  large  divi- 
dends even  on  stock  watered  to  two,  three,  and  even 
four  times  its  real  value,  a  proceeding,  in  my  judg- 
ment, criminal  in  its  nature  and  that  should  not  much 
longer  be  permitted.  Then  on  top  of  all  this,  after  giv- 
ing the  vast  sums  we  are  continually  giving  to  those 
private  individuals  and  companies  by  way  of  franchises 
and  privileges,  the  use  of  streets,  highways,  etc.,  we 
are  struggling  continually  to  have  them,  deal  not  hon- 
orably and  fairly  with  us,  but  to  be  even  decent  in 
their  charges  and  service  and  general  treatment  of 
their  patrons.  We  have  many  times  to  fight  legally 
and  against  the  ablest  talent  that  our  combined  contri- 
butions enable  them  to  employ,  to  secure  the  most  ele- 
mental rights,  and  many  times  the  most  ordinary  forms 
of  decency  in  treatment.  The  above  is  true  in  regard 
to  practically  all  public  service  corporations,  true  of 
all  natural  monopolies  of  whatever  nature.    How  much 


134  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

better  the  public  welfare  would  be  served  if  these 
utilities  were  in  the  hands  of  the  people  moving  always 
and  directly  along  the  lines  of  their  own  best  interests. 
There  are  exceptions.  In  numbers  of  our  smaller 
places,  and  occasionally  in  the  larger,  the  service  is  all 
that  could  be  expected  from  the  profits  received,  that 
is  under  the  present  system. 

It  is  not  necessary  that  in  all  cases  there  be  public 
ownership  and  operation,  in  fact  in  probably  the  great 
majority  of  cases  at  the  present  time  this  would  be 
unnecessary  and  in  many  inexpedient ;  but  that  the 
public  service  utility  or  the  natural  monopoly  be  owned 
by  the  municipality,  state,  or  nation  and  leased  upon 
mutually  paying  terms  to  responsible  and  wisely  selected 
operating  companies,  could  not  help  but  serve  a  great 
and  wide-spread  public  good.  This  method  preserves 
the  rights  —  the  franchises  —  to  the  people  and  the 
terms  of  the  lease  can  be  so  drawn  that  the  public  be 
well  protected  as  to  quality  of  service,  etc.,  and  an 
annual  income  be  secured  which  in  practically  all  cases 
should  increase  in  its  proportions  as  time  passes. 

A  very  good  concrete  illustration  of  this  point  im- 
mediately in  hand,  comes  from  Milan,  Italy.  Prior  to 
1897  the  street  railways  were  owned  by  a  corporation 
which  paid  to  the  city  a  lump  sum  of  $200,000  a  year. 
"  Fares  were  high,  service  was  poor,  employees  were 
overworked  and  underpaid  ;  and  the  public  was  treated 
pretty  much  as  the  New  York  public  is  treated  —  like 
cattle,"  lUit  thanks  to  municipal  ownership  in  con- 
nection with  this  utility,  the  city  owns  the  tracks  and 
has  a  supervising  control  over  its  entire  railway  system. 


The  Land  of  Lk'iiig  Men  135 

It  now  receives  an  annnal  income  of  $600,000,  and 
one  of  the  most  valuable  lessons  for  us,  perhaps,  is  the 
following- :  —  During  two  hours  each  day  the  fare  on 
the  street  railways  is  the  equivalent  of  one  cent ;  during 
the  balance  of  the  day  it  is  the  equivalent  of  two  cents. 
And  the  operating  company,  which  has  a  twenty  year 
contract,  is  able  to  declare  right  good  dividends  from  its 
share  of  the  annual  earnings  of  $1,500,000.  Since  the 
city  has  owned  its  street  railway  line,  fares  have  been 
reduced  as  above,  service  has  been  vastly  improved, 
employees'  hours  have  been  reduced  and  their  time 
made  more  regular  with  a  guaranteed  rest  of  four  days 
in  each  month,  while  at  the  same  time  their  wages 
have  been  increased.  Thus  the  people  of  Milan,  the 
second  city  in  the  country,  have  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  they  have  one  of  the  best  street  railway 
systems  of  any  city  in  the  country  —  this  satisfaction 
itself  a  valuable  asset  of  the  people.  Is  n't  it  really 
about  time  that  we  "  progressive  "  American  people  be- 
gan to  sit  up  and  take  note  ? 

The  owners  of  these  public  service  utilities  find  a  way 
in  spite  of  all  efforts  against  it  to  make  them  monop- 
olies, and  the  people  are  then  at  their  mercy.  A 
safe  and  sane  principle  and  one  that  thoughtful  men 
everywhere  are  recognizing  as  thoroughly  sound  is 
this,  if  in  connection  with  anything  there  is  a  mo- 
nopoly, or  the  possibility  of  a  monopoly,  then  the 
people  should  own  and  control  that  monopoly.  It 
then  becomes  a  benefit  to  all  alike  and  an  injury  to 
none.  It  does  n't  enrich  the  few  while  it  helps  econ- 
omically to  enslave  the  many,  as  at  the  same  time  it 


136  The  Land  of  Liz'iiig  Men 

abounds  in  corruption  and  helps  undermine  and  par- 
alyze republican  institutions.  In  other  words  the  prin- 
ciple of  public  ownership  is  sound  —  the  ownership  of 
those  utilities,  that  from  their  nature  become  or  may 
become  monopolies,  or  of  those  utilities  that  from 
their  nature  derive  'their  values  from  the  common 
needs  of  the  people. 

Whether  now  or  as  time  passes  it  may  be  practicable 
or  advisable  that  all  such  utilities  come  under  public 
ownership  and  control,  is  something  that  can  be  deter- 
mined only  by  the  people  in  a  reckoning  with  the  con- 
ditions in  each  particular  locality  and  in  each  particu- 
lar case.  But  there  is  a  principle  thoroughly  safe  as 
well  as  sound  that  should  be  put  into  immediate  oper- 
ation in  every  state,  namely,  that  each  locality  have  the 
right  —  by  statute,  as  it  has  the  natural  moral  right  — 
to  purchase,  or  to  construct  and  own,  and  to  operate  or 
control  such  of  its  utilities,  as  at  any  time  it  may  decide 
upon.  And  any  legislator  who  sees  fit  to  record  his 
vote  against  any  enabling  measure  of  this  nature,  gives 
evidence,  with  possibly  a  rare  exception,  of  his  sub- 
serviency to  certain  agencies  that  do  not  represent  the 
people,  or  of  his  anticipation  of  such  subserviency,  and 
these  are  the  men  who,  as  we  get  a  little  more  stamina 
in  the  recognition  of  and  the  performance  of  our  duties 
as  citizens  of  a  progressive  and  advancing  nation,  will 
be  quickly  read  out  of  public  life. 

If  a  private  company  is  giving  a  good  service  at  a 
reasonable  cost,  and  is  decent  and  honourable  in  its 
methods  and  in  its  dealings  with  the  public,  there  may 
be  no  reason,  and  in  large  numbers  of  cases  there  wdll 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  137 

be  found  no  reason  for  interfering  with  it.  But,  where 
such  is  not  the  case  the  city  should  have  the  right  even 
for  the  protection,  to  say  nothing  of  the  welfare,  of  its 
people,  either  to  bring  such  concern  to  terms,  or  to 
throw  it  out  of  business  entirely.  The  fact  of  the  city 
having  such  right,  will,  of  itself  act  as  a  tremendous 
protection,  and  the  chances  are  that  such  right  would 
have  to  be  exercised  only  now  and  then  as  occasion 
might  demand.  In  regard  to  this  principle  all  fair  and 
unbiassed  minds  certainly  cannot  fail  to  agree. 

The  fact  that  practically  all  of  our  cities,  and  even 
our  larger  ones,  as  well  as  the  nation  itself,  are  still  in 
their  infancy,  shows  how  careful  and  how  zealous  their 
people  should  be  in  the  disposition  of  their  public  utili- 
ties, for  the  values  of  these  will,  as  time  passes,  in- 
crease to  tremendous  proportions. 

On  account  of  these  natural  monopolies  being 
grabbed  and  monopolized  for  the  enrichment  of  the  few, 
and  therefore  not  administered  for  the  common  good  of 
all  the  people,  the  two  greatest  evils  among  us  as  a  na- 
tion have  gradually  come  about.  The  one  lies  in  the 
great  inequality  in  the  distribution  of  the  wealth  of  the 
country  in  that  we  have  the  few  thousands  of  the  exces- 
sively and  sometimes  criminally  rich,  over  against  the 
millions  of  the  poor,  and  resulting  in  the  almost  unbe- 
lievable conditions  we  have  already  noted.  If  you  will 
search  carefully  you  will  find  that  practically  all  the 
great  fortunes  now  held  by  individuals  or  families  have 
been  built  up  through  the  ownership  and  control,  or  the 
monopoly,  of  these  public  service  utilities  or  these  great 
natural  monopolies.     Look  carefully  and  see  if  this  is 


138  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

not  true.  Once  in  a  while  you  will  find  an  exception,  a 
minor  exception,  but  so  rarely  that  the  other  becomes 
pre-eminently  the  rule. 

To  these  as  the  new  generation  comes  along,  we  owe 
our  continually  increasing  numbers  of  the  "  idle  rich," 
some  of  whom  —  both  men  and  women  —  have  never 
been  known  to  do  an  honest  day's  work  in  their  lives. 
They  live  and  fare  sumptuously,  they  roll  in  wealth, 
and  all  the  time,  as  John  Stuart  Mill  has  pointed  out, 
they  are  being  supported  by  the  daily  toil  of  others. 
Gradually  they  come  to  believe  that  they  are  made  of 
a  different  type  of  clay  from  those  about  them,  that 
they  Were  made  to  be  served  and  supported  by  others, 
and  so  also  their  children.  In  this  way  many  become 
"  smart  "  and  foolish  and  gradually  prepare  the  way  for 
their  descendants  either  immediate  or  remote,  to  become 
degenerates  or  linked  with  degenerates,  through  whom 
the  ability  to  live  longer  through  the  support  of  others, 
becomes  dissipated.  It  is  they  who  lose  the  respect  of 
the  great  common  people,  and  when  this  is  once  lost 
something  is  lost  that  no  amount  of  wealth  or  supposed 
station  will  ever  compensate  for.  This  is  true  as  every 
sane  person  will  realize,  not  of  all,  by  any  means,  but 
it  is  true  of  very  many. 

The  second  great  evil  lies  in  the  vast  amount  of  bri- 
bery and  corruption  and  debauchery  that  has  come 
about  in  public  and  political  life,  the  riding  over  the 
rights  of  the  people  that  these  agencies  have  brought 
about.  A  detail  of  the  political  intrigues  of  the  com- 
panies and  corporations  in  their  manipulations  of  the 
people's  representatives  in  city  councils  and  in  state 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  139 

and  national  legislatures  for  their  own  private  busi- 
ness ends,  would  fill  volume  after  volume.  Most  people 
are  now  familiar  with  it  in  some  form  or  another.  The 
fact  that  great  private  wealth  so  dominates  legislators 
is  proof  in  itself  that  it  is  not  healthy.  When,  there- 
fore, these  great  sources  of  private  wealth  that  belong 
by  right  to  the  people  are  managed  in  the  interests  of 
the  people,  we  shall  then  witness  a  gradual  letting  go 
of  the  grip  of  this  monster. 

We  are  now,  how'ever,  beginning  to  make  a  more 
rapid  progress  with  things  as  they  are.  Within  a 
period  of  less  than  half  a  dozen  years  there  has  come 
into  being  in  connection  with  most  of  these  public  utili- 
ties, an  institution  that  is  destined  practically  to  revo- 
lutionize our  past  and  present  lax  methods  —  the  Pub- 
lic Service  Commission,  that  has  received  its  most 
complete  and  successful  embodiment  up  to  the  present, 
perhaps,  in  the  states  of  New  York  and  Wisconsin. 
Already  the  results  accomplished  are  beyond  the  be- 
liefs of  the  most  sanguine. 

They  have  been  given  practically  complete  control 
of  all  public  service  utilities  in  these  states.  The  laws 
creating  them  seek  to  "  protect  the  public  against  the 
public  service  companies,  the  public  service  companies 
against  the  public ;  and,  most  important  of  all,  it  seeks 
to  protect  both  the  public  and  the  public  corporations 
against  their  common  enemy,  — ■  the  speculator.  It 
aims,  in  short,  to  make  the  public  service  company 
serve  the  public,  which  means  the  service  of  patrons 
and  stockholders  alike  and  in  equal  degree."  The 
Commissions  are  guarded  by  such  precautions  that  very 


140  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

little  of  their  work,  and  few  if  any  of  their  orders,  can 
be  overthrown  or  halted  by  adverse  court  decisions,  or 
even  stays  compelled  through  injunctions  —  the  meth- 
ods of  the  public  service  corporations  are  now  pretty 
well  known  and  are  being  profited  by  ■ —  and  it  is  only 
by  giving  the  Commissions  the  widest  authority  of  a 
judicial-executive  type,  that  will  insure  them  the  com- 
plete fulfilment  of  their  purpose. 

The  New  York  Commissions  —  in  New  York  there 
are  two,  one  of  five  members  for  the  state  outside  of 
New  York  City,  and  one  of  five  members  whose  juris- 
diction extends  over  all  public  service  companies  in 
and  pertaining  to  New  York  City.  The  latter  will 
serve  to  point  to  some  facts  as  regard  its  methods  and 
its  results.  The  Commission  has  its  own  corps  of  ex- 
perts and  legal  advisers  and  accountants.  It  has  to 
take  the  word  of  no  company  in  regard  to  any  values, 
or  terms,  or  charges,  or  as  to  whether  any  given  thing 
can  or  cannot  be  done.  It  is  able  to  ascertain  all  these 
facts  for  itself.  It  reviews  and  adjusts  something  over 
10,000  complaints  each  twelve-month.  It  enables,  for 
the  first  time  perhaps,  "  the  small  individual  person  to 
treat  with  the  great  corporate  person  on  something- 
like  equal  terms."  It  not  only  reviews  and  investigates 
complaints,  but  inaugurates  all  types  of  investigations 
on  its  own  initiative.  It  not  only  suggests,  but  when  its 
investigations  and  data  are  complete  to  the  point  of 
issuing  an  order,  its  order  is  issued,  and  failure  to 
comply  with  any  order,  unless  a  stay  is  obtained  from 
the  commission  itself,  is  punishable  by  a  fine  that  may 
be  as  much  as  $5,000  a  day  for  a  transportation  com- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  141 

pany,  and  $1,000  a  day  in  the  case  of  a  gas  or  electri- 
cal company. 

It  has  already  been  the  means  of  saving  hundreds 
of  lives,  through  the  compelling  of  safety  devices  se- 
lected and  tested  by  its  experts,  and  through  other 
means,  and  will  be  the  means  of  saving  many  thou- 
sands more  as  time  passes.  It  has  insured  a  better, 
more  efficient,  more  honest  service  of  many  various 
types  to  millions  of  people.  It  has  already  saved  mil- 
lions of  dollars  to  the  people  and  will  unquestionably 
be  the  agency  for  the  saving  of  hundreds  of  millions 
to  come.  It  has  been  the  means  of  protecting  the  in- 
vestor in  securities,  both  the  modest  —  those  who  need 
protection  the  most  perhaps  —  and  the  large,  from  the 
speculator  and  the  stock  jobber.  Now,  not  a  stock 
or  a  bond  of  any  description  can  be  issued  without  its 
approval.  It  seeks  to  protect  the  companies  from  the 
same  predatory  speculator.  It  will  also  forever  do 
away  with  the  granting  by  any  supposed  represen- 
tatives of  the  people,  either  state  or  municipal,  of  any 
more  perpetual  or  even  long  term  franchises  which  in 
the  aggregate  have  already  amounted  to  many  millions 
of  dollars  in  value.  In  brief,  the  Commission  serves 
the  public  —  the  individual  user  of  any  public  utiHties, 
commodity  or  service;  it  serves  and  protects  the  com- 
pany itself ;  it  serves  and  protects  the  investor  in  se- 
curities ;  and  not  least  perhaps,  it  serves  to  bring  sys- 
tem and  order  out  of  a  state  of  practical  chaos  and 
anarchy. 

The  plan  of  the  Public  Service  Commission  should 
be  carefully  studied  and  instituted,  and  without  delay, 


142  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

in  every  state,  and  all  public  utilities,  whether  under 
private  or  under  public  ownership,  should  be  brought 
under  its  supervision.  The  wonder  is  that  we  have 
gone  along-  in  the  chaotic,  unbusinesslike  and  expen- 
sive manner  that  we  have  been  going  so  long. 

We  must  get  away  from  the  idea  that  we  are  to  be 
governed  and  our  affairs  managed  for  us.  The  people 
must  govern  and  manage  their  own  affairs.  It  is  not 
only  their  right,  but  their  duty.  If  the  people  do  not, 
then  the  exploitation  of  the  many  by  and  for  the  gain 
of  the  few  will  inevitably  follow  even  as  it  is  going  on 
to-day,  and  as  has  always  happened  when  the  people 
themselves  have  not  ruled.  Not  only  as  a  common- 
sense  principle  of  self-interest,  but  a  sense  of  safety 
for  the  commonwealth,  pure  patriotism  itself,  demands 
that  without  undue  delay  these  great  public  service 
utilities  and  these  great  natural  monopolies  be  man- 
aged for  the  interests  of  all  the  people  in  common. 

The  wealth  that  is  created  by  the  common  needs  of 
the  people  or  by  the  continually  growing  life  of  all  the 
people  should  belong  to  all  the  people.  By  moral  right 
it  belongs  to  them,  and  without  undue  delay,  that 
zvhich  belongs  to  the  people  morally  must  he  made  to 
belong  to  them  legally  and  by  cnstom. 


VII 

LABOR  AND  ITS   UNITING  POWER  — ITS 

STRENGTH—  ITS   WEA KNESS  —  ITS 

GREATER  STRENGTH 

;i^^^^  GREAT  people's  movement  is  now  the  only 
power  that  will  save  and  redeem  the  nation. 
I  think  there  is  no  more  significant  factor 
in  the  getting  ready  for  this  great  pur- 
pose than  the  splendid  companies  of  men  that  are 
bringing  themselves  together  in  our  Labor  Unions  and 
Brotherhoods  and  Federations.  And  among  them  is, 
it  must  be  said,  some  of  our  princely  citizenship. 

I  know  that  there  are  various  opinions  held  in  re- 
gard to  the  purposes  and  even  the  good  of  our  labor 
unions.  This  can  be  said,  however,  and  without  any 
fear  of  successful  contradiction,  that  those  who  know 
most  of  them  and  what  they  have  accomplished,  and 
most  of  the  business  and  labor  world  in  general,  realize 
the  splendid  results  they  have  already  achieved  and  the 
equally  important  work  that  is  yet  before  them.  Cer- 
tainly upon  their  ivisc  and  intelligent  grozvth  and  devel- 
opment depends  much  that  will  make  for  the  highest 
welfare  of  our  coming  institutions. 

I  know  that  there  are  those  who  have  doubted  even 
the  right  of  labor  combining  in  this  way,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  expediency  of  it.       It  is  not  only  right  and  ex- 

143 


144  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

pcdient,  as  I  view  it,  that  labor  should  so  organize,  but 
it  is  also  absolutely  necessary  that  it  do  so,  necessary  not 
only  for  its  own  good  and  welfare,  but  also  for  the  good 
and  the  welfare  of  the  very  nation  itself. 

It  has  been  the  history  of  labor  that  what  it  has 
gained  for  itself  —  and  it  has  gained  much  —  it  has 
gained  entirely  through  its  own  efforts. 

Those  who  are  at  all  acquainted  with  the  conditions 
of  labor  in  times  past,  and  especially  prior  to  the  present 
century,  know  out  of  what  a  condition  of  bondage  it 
has  gradually  lifted  itself.  It  was  at  one  time  in  that 
condition  in  which  it  had  literally  no  rights  that  were 
considered  as  belonging  to  human  beings.  Before  con- 
sidering the  matter  further  it  is  interesting  to  note  that 
in  the  industrial  world,  the  captains  of  industry  —  the 
employers  —  had  this  same  fight  for  liberty  and  for  jus- 
tice, and  they  are  now,  mark  you,  not  such  a  great  ways 
ahead  of  that  larger  class  called  wage-workers. 

Concerning  this  an  eminent  authority  has  said :  "  In 
ancient  times,  particularly  in  the  Roman  and  the 
mediaeval  world,  a  manufacturer  or  merchant,  though 
his  ships  might  cover  the  inland  seas,  though  thousands 
of  men  might  be  doing  his  bidding,  yet  he  had  no  voice 
in  the  government,  was  not  considered  fit  for  a  gentle- 
man and  patrician  to  associate  with,  had  no  voice  in 
making  the  laws  that  should  govern  him,  nor  in  deter- 
mining what  taxes  he  should  pay ;  he  was  plundered 
indirectly  by  means  of  taxation,  and  when  this  did  not 
suit  the  purpose  of  dissipated  and  rapacious  officialism, 
he  was  plundered  directly.  To  be  born  a  patrician,  to  be 
a  member  of  the  priesthood,  or  a  successful  military 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  145 

chieftain,  entitled  a  man  to  rule.  The  man  who  sup- 
plied the  world  with  necessaries  had  no  social  or 
political  standing,  and  this  continued  to  be  so  through- 
out the  Middle  Ages  —  continued  to  be  so  in  almost  all 
Europe  till  toward  the  end  of  the  last  century,  and  is  to 
a  great  extent  still  the  case  in  Russia  and  in  the  Turkish 
provinces  of  Europe.  ...  In  England  the  employer 
acquired  his  rights  earlier,  and  has  for  some  time  had  a 
voice  in  the  government.  But  even  in  England  the 
much  praised  Magna  Charta  was  not  for  the  benefit  of 
either  employer  or  workman,  but  simply  of  the  nobility 
—  the  idle,  who,  by  reason  of  the  accident  of  birth,  were 
enabled  to  appropriate  the  labor  of  others." 

Continuing  and  speaking  also  of  the  early  conditions 
of  the  wage- workers,  he  says :  "  But,  upon  the  whole, 
the  employer  in  his  struggles  for  justice  is  not  a  century 
in  advance  of  the  class  we  to-day  call  the  wage- workers, 
and  they,  the  laborers,  were  in  ancient  and  later  times 
practically  all  slaves.  To  be  sure,  we  catch  here  and 
there,  in  ancient  literature,  a  phrase  about  the  laborer 
being  worthy  of  his  hire,  but  when  we  examine  into  the 
actual  condition  of  the  toiling  masses  we  are  forced  to 
treat  such  utterances  as  the  emanations  of  fancy,  for 
not  only  was  the  labor  of  the  masses  at  the  absolute  dis- 
posal of  the  master,  but  practically,  and  in  every-day 
experience,  their  lives  were  also.  True,  there  was  in 
most  countries  a  law  providing  that  the  master  should 
not  kill  his  slave,  but  if  the  master  did  so  he  generally 
went  un whipped  of  justice.  This  continued  to  be  the 
condition,  with  slight  exceptions,  throughout  all  Europe 
down  to  near  the  beginning  of  this  century.     For  un- 


146  TJic  Land  of  Living  Men 

numbered  centuries  they  were  absolute  slaves,  belong- 
ing to  individuals ;  then  they  belonged,  as  it  were,  to  the 
soil,  and  were  known  as  serfs  and,  in  time,  in  England 
they  may  be  said  to  have  belonged  to  the  county  or 
shire.    .    .    . 

"  In  1360,  during  the  reign  of  Edward  III,  it  was 
provided  by  law  that  if  a  laborer  refused  to  work  for 
the  wages  fixed  by  law  or  by  the  justices  of  the  county, 
or  if  he  went  outside  of  the  county  he  was  to  be  brought 
back  by  the  sheriff,  was  to  be  imprisoned,  and  was  to 
have  the  letter  '  F  '  branded  with  a  hot  iron  upon  his 
forehead  in  token  of  his  falsity.  If  he  sought  by  any 
manner  to  increase  the  rate  of  wages,  he  was  to  be  im- 
prisoned. .  .  .  From  that  time  on,  for  four  cen- 
turies, the  legislation  in  England  is  of  uniform  kind, 
prohibiting  by  imprisonment  all  meetings  of  workmen, 
and  providing  that  the  justice  should  fix  the  wages  to  be 
paid  in  their  county ;  that  if  any  laborer  refused  to  work 
for  the  wages  fixed  by  the  justices,  he  was  to  be  put  in 
the  stocks ;  if  any  laborer  was  found  idle  and  did  not 
apply  himself  to  work,  he  was  to  have  the  letter  '  V  ' 
branded  with  a  hot  iron  upon  his  cheek,  and  was  to  be 
sold  into  slavery  for  two  years,  his  children  likewise  to 
be  sold,  and  if  cither  he  or  they  ran  away  they  were  to 
have  the  letter  '  S  '  branded  on  the  cheek  with  a  hot 
iron,  and  were  to  be  sold  into  slavery  for  life,  and  were 
to  be  fed  on  bread  and  water,  and  it  was  provided  by 
law  that  they  were  to  be  made  to  work  by  beating,  by 
chaining,  etc.,  and  if  they  ran  away  again  they  were  to 
suffer  death.  Children  that  had  worked  at  husbandry 
till  they  were  twelve  years  old,  were  forbidden  ever  to 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  147 

attempt  to  do  anything  else ;  other  children  were  re- 
quired to  follow  the  occupation  of  their  parents  or  be 
imprisoned.  It  is  hard  to  conceive  of  a  condition  of  the 
laboring  classes  that  could  be  much  worse  than  that  of 
the  English  during  these  centuries." 

And  so  far  as  the  length  of  the  work-day  was  con- 
cerned, during  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  in  1562, 
the  following  statute  was  enacted :  "  All  artificers  and 
laborers  being  hired  for  wages  by  the  day  or  week  shall 
betwixt  the  midst  of  the  months  of  March  and  Septem- 
ber be  and  continue  at  their  work  at  or  before  five  of 
the  clock  in  the  morning  and  continue  at  work  and  not 
depart  until  betwixt  seven  and  eight  of  the  clock  at 
night,  except  it  be  in  the  time  of  breakfast,  dinner,  or 
drinking ;  and  all  such  artificers  and  laborers  between 
the  midst  of  September  and  the  midst  of  March  shall 
be  and  continue  at  their  work  from  the  spring  of  the 
day  in  the  morning  until  the  night  of  the  same  day,  ex- 
cept in  the  time  of  breakfast  and  dinner." 

So  much  then  for  the  early  conditions  of  both  em- 
ployer and  wage-worker.  We  come  on  down  then  to 
our  own  time.  As  the  employer  class  became  fully 
emancipated  they  began  to  take  matters  into  their  own 
hands,  and  in  their  relations  with  those  who  worked 
for  them  and  who  Were  the  absolutely  essential  factor 
in  their  business  and  who  helped  make  their  profits, 
they  had  the  entire  say.  They  paid  the  wages  they 
chose.  They  laid  down  the  conditions  under  which 
those  working  for  them  did  their  work.  The  laborer 
had  practically  nothing  to  say  regarding  anything. 
The    employers    were   organizing   among   themselves ; 


148  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

they  were  g^etting  stronger,  and  as  a  rule,  it  can  be  truth- 
fully said,  more  dictatorial.  The  wage-workers  then 
began  to  take  heed.  They  began  to  see  what  was  to  be 
gained  through  organization,  through  co-operation. 
They  realized  that  they  had  grievances  of  various  types, 
that  they  were  not  getting  as  a  rule  a  fair  share  in  the 
profits  of  the  enterprise  in  which  they  were  as  neces- 
sary a  factor  as  the  element  of  capital  and  its  man- 
agement. They  also  realized  that  as  individuals  they 
had  absolutely  no  way  of  making  any  of  their  wants 
or  grievances  known,  and  that  for  individuals  to 
act  in  these  matters  was  not  only  futile  but  unsafe 
for  the  one  or  ones  so  acting.  Then  organization 
and  the  uniting  of  the  wage-workers  in  the  form  of 
the  labor  union  came  into  being. 

In  reply  to  the  question,  "  What  originally  were  th< 
conditions  and  facts  which  seemed  to  make  necessary 
the  combinations  of  workmen  called  '  labor  unions,' 
and  which  justify  their  present  existence?"  an  officer 
of  one  of  our  larger  labor  organizations  gave  the  fol- 
lowing reply :  "  To  describe  accurately  such  conditions 
and  facts  would  require  many  volumes  dealing  with  so- 
cial conditions,  social  injustice,  special  privilege,  all 
ever  the  world.  The  specific  fact  which  made  labor 
unions  necessary  was  this :  Wealth  was  produced  as  a 
result  of  a  combination  of  labor  and  of  intelligent  di- 
rection. The  direction,  otherwise  the  employer,  was  in 
absolute  control,  fixed  wages,  treated  the  employee  a? 
he  saw  fit.  The  employers  were  also  united  in  their 
social  relationships,  their  mutual  interests  and  in  other 
ways.      The   employees,   the   workers,    were   isolated ; 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  149 

they  had  no  union,  working-  from  dawn  till  dark  made 
social  intercourse  impossible.  The  unions  of  workers 
were  formed  for  the  same  reason  that  the  union  of 
states  in  this  country  was  formed  —  namely,  to  give 
to  the  individuals  forming-  the  union  the  greater 
strength  that  comes  from  united  action,  to  give  them 
the  dignity  that  comes  with  escape  from  a  servile  con- 
dition, to  give  them  the  power  enabling  them  to  obtain 
for  themselves  fair  wages,  involving  comfort  and  educa- 
tion for  their  families  and  leisure  for  mental  improve- 
ment for  themselves." 

Said  the  President  of  the  American  Federation  of 
Labor  in  a  recent  address  before  the  New  York  Board 
of  Trade  and  Transportation :  "  The  very  concentration 
of  wealth  and  its  possession  is  potent  organization,  and 
unless  the  wage-earners,  the  workers,  combined  their 
efforts  in  unions  of  labor,  their  condition  to-day  would 
be  such  as  to  shock  the  mind  even  in  contemplation. 
That  any  hope  for  material  improvement,  moral  ad- 
vancement, or  higher  ethical  consideration  is  possible 
without  the  organizations  of  labor  few  now  seriously 
believe." 

This  is  quite  in  keeping  with  an  utterance  of  former 
Governor  Washburn,  of  Massachusetts,  when  he  spoke 
as  follows :  "  The  fact  that  there  is  unrest  and  dissatis- 
faction when  man  is  confined  to  unremitting  toil  is  one 
of  the  brightest  and  most  healthy  omens  of  the  times. 
It  is  an  indication  that  his  better  nature  is  struggling 
for  emancipation  ;  it  is  a  hopeful  sign  of  finer  and  nobler 
manhood  in  the  future.  Such  efforts  for  improvenlent 
should  never  be  discouraged,  but  always  encouraged." 


150  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

So  much  then  for  the  right,  the  expediency,  and  the 
necessity  of  the  wage-worker  organizing  and  uniting 
for  protection  and  for  mutual  self-help. 

The  labor  unions  have  committed  errors  of  course ; 
they  are  committing  them  to-day,  and  plenty  of  them. 
Counts  of  many  various  types  can  be  made  against  them. 
Enemies  of  or  those  unfriendly  to  union  labor  could, 
I  dare  say,  compile  very  long  lists  of  errors  and  ex- 
cesses of  various  kinds.  Friends  of  and  those  sympa- 
thetic to  union  labor  could  compile  also  a  similar  list. 
But  this  is  only  natural,  for  in  the  early  and  formative 
days  of  any  movement  this  is  practically  always  true; 
there  is  indeed  scarcely  an  exception.  No  movement  or 
system,  especially  one  involving  such  complex  and  such 
difficult  matters  to  deal  with  and  men  in  such  various 
stages  of  development,  can  start  in  a  fully  perfected 
form,  nor  is  it  to  be  expected.  Once  it  was  urged  in 
England  that  men  should  not  be  given  their  political 
freedom  until  they  were  fully  prepared  to  use  it  rightly, 
and  until  there  was  no  danger  of  their  ever  abusing  it. 
This  course  seemed  plausible  and  reasonable  to  those 
advocating  it ;  to  it  Lord  Macaulay  replied,  "If  men  are 
to  wait  for  freedom  until  they  have  become  good  and 
wise  in  slavery,  they  will  wait  forever." 

In  a  similar  vein  and  speaking  directly  of  organized 
labor,  the  Springfield  Republican  has  said:  "Viewed 
philosophically,  it  is  inevitable  that  a  riot  of  inexperience 
and  inefficiency  should  characterize  the  early  stages  of 
labor's  organization.  No  state  of  society  is  ever  inaugu- 
ratcTl  with  people  already  perfected  for  its  coming.  .  .  . 
Republican  institutions  were  not  deferred  on  earth  until 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  151 

a  people  were  found  entirely  capable  of  running  perfect 
republics.  Democracy  did  not  await  the  advent  of  a 
population  already  fully  trained  in  the  arts  of  self-gov- 
ernment. All  these  things  come,  and  the  people  most 
concerned  have  to  develop  up  to  them.  Such  is  the  les- 
son of  history.  Labor-unionism  came  also,  and,  in  the 
same  way,  its  adherents  have  had  to  discipline  them- 
selves by  experience  in  the  best  methods  of  organization 
and  conservative  management.  On  the  whole,  taking 
into  consideration  the  enormous  increase  of  unionism, 
it  is  no  more  than  fair  to  say  that  it  is  constantly  gain- 
ing in  equilibrium  and  sanity." 

The  unions  and  their  leaders  have  been  learning 
rapidly  in  these  matters.  Generally  speaking,  the  older 
the  union  the  more  conservative  and  quiet  and  at  the 
same  time  firm  and  effective  is  it  in  its  methods  and  its 
dealings.  In  other  countries,  in  England  for  example, 
where  the  unions  are  a  great  deal  older,  they  have  even 
long  ago  worked  through  and  out  of  the  rash  and  tem- 
pestuous stages,  the  stages  where  so  many  counts  could 
be  made  against  them,  and  have  reached  the  position 
that  the  unions  in  America  have  been  gradually  working 
their  way  towards.  Here,  as  there,  it  has  been  a  long, 
hard  road  to  travel,  it  has  meant  fight  and  defeat,  and 
at  times  apparent  rout  along  with  the  battles  won,  the 
experience  gained,  the  advancement  made  —  the  pres- 
ent priceless  possession.  It  has  meant  brave  sufferings 
many  times  not  only  on  the  part  of  the  wage-workers, 
but  also  on  the  part  of  their  families.  It  has  meant,  at 
times,  the  facing  of  great  uncertainty. 

I  think  it  should  be  said  that  from  the  managers  of 


152  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

capital,  labor  has  learned  some  of  its  worst  features 
and  excesses.  I  think  it  can  be  truthfully  said  that  with 
all  the  excesses  and  violations  of  law  on  the  part  of 
union  labor  in  times  passed  it  has  never,  taking  it  all  in 
all,  equalled  the  amount  of  disregard  for  and  violation 
of  law  that  organized  capital  has  been  guilty  of.  It  has 
been  more  open  and  awkward  in  its  methods,  per- 
haps, while  organized  capital  in  addition  to  being  in 
many  cases  also  glaringly  open,  has  worked  in  a  sub- 
tile and  silent  way  under  cover.  The  latter  is  more 
skilled,  it  may  be  said,  and  hence  more  apt  in  these 
matters. 

But  out  of  this  long  and  at  times  apparently  clumsy 
struggle,  union  labor  in  this  country  is  also  attaining  a 
position  where  it  is  exerting  a  great  and  powerful  good, 
not  only  for  its  own  and  for  the  public  welfare,  but  also 
for  organized  capital,  if  the  latter  is  wise  enough  to 
openly  and  freely  recognize  its  power  and  its  purposes. 

In  connection  with  the  final  settlement  of  the  great 
strike  in  the  anthracite  fields  some  time  ago,  there  were 
among  others  two  utterances  to  me  very  significant  and 
worthy  of  a  wide  reproduction.  Judge  Gray,  chairman 
of  the  Arbitration  Commission,  said,  "  Unless  my  judg- 
ment is  at  fault  and  my  faith  unfounded,  the  labor 
unions  will  soon  have  passed  through  their  period  of 
trial  and  tribulation  and  will  emerge  on  a  bright  and 
sunlit  plain,  where  true  American  character,  the  fruit  of 
American  liberty,  will  illustrate  the  worth  of  our  in- 
stitutions. Purging  themselves  of  every  anti-social  and 
unworthy  element,  recognizing  in  others  the  rights  they 
claim  for  themselves,  with  malice  towards  none  and 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  153 

charity  towards  all,  subordinate  to  law,  with  a  full  sense 
of  their  appeal  to  the  public  opinion  of  the  country,  as 
our  fathers  made  their  appeal,  they  will  be  upheld  in 
the  time  to  come  by  employers,  as  powerful  coadjusters, 
in  the  maintenance  of  American  ideals  of  free  govern- 
ment among  men," 

Much  of  the  energy  of  labor  unions  up  to  the  pres- 
ent time  has  been  directed  towards  the  securing  of  a  lar- 
ger wage  or  of  a  shorter  work-day,  and  in  some  cases 
towards  both.  It  is  quite  natural  that  at  first  this  should 
be  true.  But  with  this  gained  to  a  greater  or  less  extent, 
there  comes  a  time  and  it  has  now  come,  when  it  must 
push  out  into  a  larger  and  more  general  field.  These 
gained,  and  with  more  time  for  council  and  intercourse, 
and  with  a  greater  recognition  of  its  power  and  its 
standing,  it  is  more  able  now  to  move  upon  a  broader 
and  still  more  telling  plain.  The  union  and  the  federa- 
tion has  also  been  an  excellent  means  of  training  in  rea- 
son as  against  crankery,  in  moderation  as  against  rash- 
ness and  hot-headedness.  in  short  for  a  broader  and 
i::ore  substantial  and  effective  citizenship.  A  very  dis- 
criminating writer,  in  speaking  along  this  line,  has  said : 
"If  we  omit  certain  unions  in  the  more  corrupt  cities, 
Vv'here  the  leaders  learn  bad  habits  by  imitation,  and  are 
too  frequently  bought  and  sold,  there  is  at  the  present 
moment  in  this  country  no  more  powerful  influence  to 
train  men  for  citizenship  than  the  influences  at  work 
in  the  best  and  strongest  labor  organizations.  This  is 
true  of  the  Federation ;  it  is  true  of  separate  unions  like 
the  printers,  trainmen,  iron-moulders ;  many  of  the 
longshoremen,  and  cigar-makers. 


154  ^/'^  Land  of  Living  Men 

"  But  especially  do  these  older  and  stronger  unions 
learn  to  check  dangerous  and  revolutionary  opinions. 
...  As  the  trade  union  strengthens,  its  influence 
against  turbulent  and  revolutionary  projects  steadily 
increases.  The  only  agency  that  will  prevent  the  spread 
of  this  conservatism  is  the  fatuous  obstinancy  which 
insists  upon  defeating  completer  labor  organization."* 

The  time  has  come  it  seems  to  me  when  organized 
and  federated  labor  must  move,  and  move  in  a  very  ef- 
fective and  telling  way  along  the  lines  of  political  action. 
Not  that  the  union  or  the  federation  as  such,  as  an  or- 
ganization, must  so  act,  for  this  all  along  it  has  steadily 
avoided  and  undoubtedly  most  wisely.  There  would  be 
pitfalls  innumerable  for  it,  did  it  adopt  or  attempt  to 
adopt  such  a  course.  Nor  would  anyone  of  judgment 
advocate  the  membership  of  the  union  or  federation  as 
such  affiliating  with  any  particular  party.  To  be  inde- 
pendent in  party  action,  here  as  in  the  rest  of  our 
citizenship  should  be,  as  it  is  getting  more  and  more 
to  be,  the  great  fact ;  then  for  organized  labor  to  work 
along  the  lines  of  educating  its  membership  in  the  lines 
of  policy  and  legislation  that  gives  or  that  keeps  for  the 
great  common  people,  of  which  the  wage- worker  i.3 
such  a  large  and  powerful  factor,  larger  rights  arid 
fairer  opportunities  and  more  just  conditions,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  privileged  classes  by  whom  the 
chief  portion  of  the  machinery  of  government  is  now 
dominated  and  controlled,  and  in  whose  interests  the 
larger  share  of  legislation  is  now  enacted.     And  so  far 

*  John  Graham  Brooks  in  "  The  Social  Unrest,"  Chap.  xii. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  155 

as  the  immediate  demands  and  the  welfare  of  organized 
labor  is  concerned,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  time  has  now 
come  when  this  is  the  effective  and  the  telling  method  of 
work,  also  the  orderly  and  the  peaceable,  hence,  the 
most  satisfactory. 

It  is  undoubtedly  in  the  matter  of  strikes  and  the 
almost  innumerable  evils  that  accompany  them  that 
union  labor  has  suffered  most  in  its  reputation,  and  to  a 
greater  or  less  extent  in  its  standing.  Whether  this  part 
of  its  life  could  have  been  lived  better  or  not  is  of  no  im- 
portance so  far  as  the  present  consideration  is  con- 
cerned. The  one  concern  at  present  is  —  the  lessons 
that  are  to  be  learned  from  the  past  use  of  this  weapon. 
Undoubtedly  there  are  many  and  very  important  lessons 
to  be  learned;  undoubtedly  many  have  been  learned. 

That  strikes  have  been  too  frequently  called,  and 
especially  the  sympathetic  strike,  that  others  have  been 
called  rashly  and  without  sufficient  preparation,  and 
without  a  sufificient  consideration  of  the  chances  of 
success  beforehand,  that  others  have  been  too  frequently 
called  under  a  poor  or  ineffective,  or  self-seeking  leader- 
ship, is  undoubtedly  true.  The  abler  leaders  and  the 
better  and  more  intelligent  members  have  now  come  to 
the  position  where  they  recognize  that  the  strike  and  its 
attendant  circumstances  is  to  be  considered  only  as  a 
weapon  of  last  resort.  The  disposition,  reached  partly 
through  very  great  losses,  is  now  to  conciliate,  to  adjust 
grievances  and  differences  if  any  possible  way  can  be 
found  without  a  resort  to  the  strike. 

The  history  of  strikes,  those  lost  as  well  as  those  won, 
has  brought  home  to  the  intelligent  and  capable  and  un- 


156  Tlic  Land  of  Living  Men 

selfccntred  leader  and  union  member  some  very  clear- 
cut  facts  such  as  the  following :  that  a  strike  should  not 
be  allowed  to  be  called  by  a  walking-delegate,  or  by  any 
power  outside  of  a  full  and  complete  vote  of  the  union  ; 
that  the  union  should  move  slowly  and  with  every 
possible  degree  of  fairness  ;  that  it  should  be  thoroughly 
organized  and  ready  for  the  strike ;  that  it  be  under  the 
direction  of  a  thoroughly  able  and  honest  and  proven 
leader ;  that  it  be  sure  that  its  demands  or  its  grievances 
are  thoroughly  just  and  sufificiently  important  to  pay 
this  price  for  their  attainment  or  their  adjustment; 
that  it  has  come  to  pass  that  public  opinion  is  the  court 
or  the  power  that  finally  decides  whether  the  strike 
be  successful  or  whether  it  end  in  failure ;  therefore, 
in  addition  to  the  necessity  that  the  demands  be  thor- 
oughly just  ones,  that  there  be  no  violence  or  rioting. 
True,  owners  and  managers  of  capital  —  as  well  as  sym- 
pathizers —  have  provoked  or  have  deliberately  planned 
and  provoked  violence  and  rioting,  as  they  probably  will 
in  other  cases  yet  to  come,  but  by  forbearance  and 
patience  the  public  can  in  practically  all  cases  eventually 
be  shown  its  source,  and  it  will  render  its  verdict  ac- 
cordingly. The  very  fact  that  this  method  has  some- 
times been  deliberately  resorted  to,  to  help  weaken  or 
break  a  strike,,  is  itself  a  powerful  and  quiet  commentary 
upon  the  influence  and  the  power  of  public  opinion  as 
the  determining  factor  in  a  strike. 

How  keen  the  really  able  labor  leader  is  in  regard 
to  the  importance  of  no  violence  emanating  from  the 
organization  in  time  of  strike  is  shown  partly  by  the 
following  words  of  John  Mitchell,  spoken  in  connection 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  157 

with  the  anthracite  coal  strike  of  several  years  ago,  and 
not  for  its  effect  upon  the  public  but  in  earnest  counsel 
to  the  miners :  "  If  you  want  to  spoil  your  own  cause 
and  lose  every  sacrifice  you  have  made  for  yourself  and 
your  families,  give  way  to  your  temper  and  commit 
some  violence.  Just  a  few  outbreaks  like  this  and  the 
public  good-will,  to  which  we  must  look  in  last  resort, 
will  fail  us  and  we  shall  deserve  to  lose  it."  A  leader  of 
the  keen  insight  of  John  Mitchell,  understands  all  too 
thoroughly  what  the  element  of  violence,  emanating 
from  the  organization  at  a  critical  period  of  the  strike, 
would  mean  in  its  effect  upon  public  opinion.  This, 
however,  is  not  exceptional  counsel,  but  it  has  grown 
to  be  that  which  is  common  on  the  part  of  the  able,  ex- 
perienced, and  efficient  labor  leaders. 

The  very  large  number  of  strikes  that  are  prevented 
through  the  influence  and  the  clearer  counsels  of  the 
abler  leader  and  his  subordinates,  is  probably  not 
realized  by  the  one  not  intimately  acquainted  with 
organized  labor.  The  following  letter  by  a  very  able 
general  secretary  of  the  Garment  Worker's  Union, 
is  also  indicative  of  much  that  is  going  on  at  present : 

"  Mr.  foreman  of  informs  me  that  your 

only  reason  for  calling  out  the  men  was  that  he  refused 
to  continue  in  his  employ  two  men  laid  off  for  incom- 
petent work,  and  that  even  your  business  agent  ad- 
mitted that  the  work  of  the  men  was  imperfect.  If 
such  is  the  case,  your  action  in  withdrawing  the  men 
was  not  justified.  This  office,  as  well  as  the  National 
Union,  is  opposed  to  forcing  upon  an  employer  men 
whose  work  is  not  suitable.    It  is  just  that  sort  of  thing 


158  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

that  creates  needless  opposition  to  the  union,  and  causes 
no  end  of  trouble.  Your  union  is  the  only  one  that 
would  make  such  a  demand.  Where  members  are  made 
to  believe  that  they  cannot  be  discharged,  no  matter 
what  they  do,  they  become  careless,  and  the  poor  work- 
man falls  back  upon  the  protection  of  the  union.  The 
employer  has  got  to  sell  the  goods,  and  he  assumes  the 
risk,  consequently  he  alone  can  be  the  judge  as  to  the 
quality  of  work.  As  long  as  he  pays  the  union  scale 
and  does  not  discriminate  against  active  members,  that 
is  all  you  can  expect  of  him. 

"  Now  I  trust  you  will  not  place  us  in  a  position 
where  the  General  Executive  Board  will  have  to  decide 
against  you." 

I  know  there  are  employers  who  have  become  very 
bitter  against  organized  labor.  I  know  also  that  some, 
at  times,  have  had  to  meet  some  very  exasperating 
things  from  the  unions.  This  I  think  is  owing  in  great 
])art  to  two  causes :  the  feeling  of  power  that  has  come 
to  labor  since  the  unions  have  become  a  force  that  must 
be  reckoned  with  ;  and  again  on  account  of  the  sort  of 
transitional  period  through  which  both  employer  and 
worker  have  been  passing,  where  we  have  reached  the 
end  of  the  period  where  the  employer  has  had  practi- 
cally everything  to  say  in  connection  with  the  works  and 
the  conditions  of  labor,  and  where  he  is  now  loath  to 
admit  that  the  portion  of  his  establishment,  the  portion 
as  necessary  as  his  capital,  his  management,  and  his 
machinery  —  the  workmen  —  can  have  anything  to  say 
regarding  any  feature  of  his  works.  But  the  day  has 
come  when  the  wise  owner  or  manager  is  he  who  openly 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  159 

and  even  cheerfully  recognizes  this.  There  are  those 
who  have  taken  this  view  of  the  matter,  have  acted 
accordingly,  and  are  even  now  glad  that  this  changed 
condition  has  come  about.  They  are  managing  in  such 
a  way  that  great  good  is  resulting  to  them  as  well  as  to 
their  workmen. 

The  day  of  "  my  business  "  has  passed ;  the  day  of 
"  our  business  "  has  arrived.  The  new  industrial  era 
that  we  are  now  entering  upon  is  the  one  in  which 
there  shall  be  more  consultation  and  more  friendly  co- 
operation between  employer  and  employee ;  and  where 
if  this  method  is  entered  upon  freely  and  with  a  fuller 
and  more  sympathetic  recognition  of  each  other's  rights, 
and  of  the  amenities  due  from  each  to  the  other,  very 
great  mutual  gains  will  be  made. 

The  one  important  factor  that  must  now  be  looked 
for  by  owners  of  large  enterprises  and  by  companies, 
is  men  as  managers  who  are  keen  enough  to  recognize 
the  advent  of  this  new  era,  and  who  are  large  enough  to 
meet  and  deal  with  labor  upon  this  new  basis.  It  is 
after  all  but  an  indication  of  the  possession  of  a  good 
degree  of  modern  business  ability.  Speaking  along  this 
line  a  very  able  Eastern  railroad  president  said  some 
time  ago :  "  To  assume  that  we  have  got  to  go  on  spas- 
modically fighting  the  unions,  is  tactless  and  unintelli- 
gent. The  truth  is  that  the  kind  of  man  who  is  not 
strong  enough  to  work  with  organized  labor  has  not  the 
qualification  for  his  position.  It  is  silly  for  powerful 
corporations  to  say,  '  We  will  deal  with  the  individuals, 
not  with  representatives  of  unions.'  Organization  of 
labor  has  got  to  be  recognized  as  such,  and  dealt  with 


160  The  Land  of  Liz'ing  Men 

as  such,  and  the  problem  now  is  to  get  men  with  the 
quahties  and  capacities  to  do  this." 

Mr.  Darrow,  one  of  the  miners'  counsel,  in  speaking 
before  the  anthracite  commission,  spoke  possibly  more 
strongly  though  not  more  truly  in  the  following.  Mr. 
Henry  D.  Lloyd,  also  counsel,  had  just  pointed  out  the 
fact  that  the  commission  could  hope  to  bring  no  peace 
to  the  anthracite  fields  that  could  be  in  any  way  per- 
manent unless  it  provided  for  agreements  with  the  un- 
ion. Mr.  Darrow,  speaking  in  regard  to  the  recognition 
of  the  union,  said  :  "  You  can  do  just  as  you  please  about 
recognizing  the  union.  If  you  do  not  recognize  it,  it  is 
because  you  are  blind  and  you  want  to  bump  up  against 
it  some  more ;  that  is  all.  It  is  here.  It  is  here  to  stay, 
and  the  burden  is  on  you  and  not  upon  us.  There  is 
neither  the  power  nor  the  disposition  in  this  court,  I  take 
it,  to  destroy  the  union.  It  would  not  accomplish  it  if  it 
could,  and  certainly  could  not  if  it  would.  And  if  these 
wise  business  men,  with  the  combined  wisdom  of  busi- 
ness gentlemen  and  the  agents  of  the  Almighty,  cannot 
see  the  union,  they  had  better  blunder  along  still  a  few 
more  years,  and  possibly  after  a  while  they  will  know  it 
is  here  and  recognize  it  themselves." 

I  know  there  is  still  a  great  deal  of  unsettled  opinion 
regarding  strikes  and  lockouts,  regarding  arbitration, 
and  especially  compulsory  arbitration.  All  who  are 
familiar  with  it,  however,  are  agreed  that  there  is  one 
form  of  arbitration  that  is  unique  in  that  it  leads  all 
other  forms.  It  is  what  has  come  to  be  known  as  the 
"  joint  agreement."  It  might  be  more  accurately  spoken 
of  as  a  form  of  conciliation  than  as  a  form  of  arbitra- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  i6i 

tion ;  or  still  more  accurately,  perhaps,  as  a  form  of 
'■  working  agreement  "  between  employer  and  employed. 
Its  basis  is,  that  once  so  often,  according  to  agreement, 
accredited  representatives  of  both  employer  and  work- 
men meet  in  a  joint  session  to  consider,  to  discuss,  and 
to  draw  up  a  set  of  agreements  that  shall  be  the  basis 
of  the  year's  or  the  period's  work.  The  very  fact 
that  labor  is  organized  and  is  capable  of  sending  re- 
sponsible representatives  to  such  a  meeting  makes  the 
"joint  agreement  "  possible.  Otherwise  it  would  not 
be  possible. 

The  joint  agreement  is  pre-eminently  the  highest 
type  of  arbitration,  for  it  is  arbitration  from  within. 
The  features  that  mark  its  high  value  are  many.  First 
are  its  educational  features,  in  that  it  makes  both  em- 
ployer and  employed  acquainted  with  each  other's  points 
of  view,  with  each  other's  needs  as  well  as  desires ;  it 
leads  to  a  better  understanding  between  employer  and 
workmen,  probably  the  greatest  need  in  our  modern  in- 
dustrial -cvorld.  And  if  entered  into  heartily  it  has  the 
tendency  of  creating  an  active  sympathy  between  the 
two.  This  in  itself  will  lead  in  time  to  a  continually 
increasing  mutual  respect  and  mutual  helpfulness. 
Again,  agreements  thus  voluntarily  made  are  far  more 
apt  to  be  kept,  and  more  easily  and  conscientiously 
than  in  case  of  conditions  imposed  from  without,  and 
which  in  almost  every  case  are  bound  to  contain  some 
features  distasteful  and  onerous  to  one  party  or  the 
other.  Again,  it  is  simply  a  recognition  of  a  purely  com- 
mon-sense and  practical  method  that  is  recognized  and 
used  in  practically  every  other  avenue  in  the  business 


i62  TJic  Land  of  Living  Men 

world.  Finally,  I  think  it  can  be  said,  that  there  can  be 
no  effective  relations  and  no  lasting  peace  between 
employer  and  workmen  until  the  agreement  is  recog- 
nized as  the  common-sense  and  fair  method  of  pro- 
cedure, and  is  entered  into  in  a  whole-souled  manner 
and  with  the  purpose  and  intention  on  the  part  of 
both  interested  parties  of  living  fully  up  to  the 
agreement. 

The  joint  agreement  is  not  a  new  method  of  con- 
ciliation or  a  new  method  of  procedure  as  between 
employer  and  employed,  but  in  some  fields  it  has  been 
used  for  many  years,  and  in  almost  all  cases  with  thor- 
oughly satisfactory  results.  It  can  therefore  be  spoken 
of  from  the  standpoint  of  its  actual  achievements.  It  is 
of  later  years,  however,  that  it  has  been  coming  into  a 
more  general  and  into  a  continually  increasing  use. 
This  fact  is  undoubtedly  an  evidence  of  its  effectiveness 
and  value. 

There  is  so  much  testimony  to  be  had  in  regard  to  its 
effective  and  satisfactory  results  that  it  would  be  in- 
teresting to  consider  much  of  it  did  space  permit.  The 
manager  of  one  of  the  largest  stove  manufactories  in 
the  country  has  said  of  the  agreement :  "  We  have  tried 
it  a  dozen  years  and  it  has  settled  all  questions  on  this 
subject  for  us.  Its  best  trait  is  that,  as  it  works,  it  trains 
the  men  to  see  the  limits  within  which  they  can  get 
advantages.  It  makes  the  men  more  conservative  and  it 
•  makes  us  more  considerate." 

Mr.  John  Graham  Brooks,  in  "  The  Social  Unrest  " 
has  dealt  with  the  joint  agreement  in  a  very  effective 
way.  At  one  place  he  says  :  "  To  keep  agreements  volun- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  163 

tarily,  is  a  much  higher  discipline  than  to  do  it  under 
force.  For  many  years  unions  have  actually  kept  con- 
tracts when  employers  have  genuinely  and  heartily  co- 
operated with  the  joint  agreement. 

"  There  is  no  such  convincing  proof  of  this  as  the 
fifteen  years'  trial  between  masters  and  men  in  the 
Boston  Building  Trades.  The  agent  of  the  employers, 
W.  H.  Sayward,  who  brought  about  this  agreement, 
conducting  it  with  growing  success  for  eighteen  years, 
allows  me  to  say  that  under  it  scores  of  strikes  have 
been  prevented,  millions  of  money  saved,  and  the  most 
delicate  questions,  like  the  limitation  of  output  and 
apprentices,  the  use  of  the  boycott,  the  conflicts  be- 
tween different  unions,  and  the  sympathetic  strike,  are 
now  so  far  understood  as  a  result  of  this  education  that 
they  are  no  longer  feared." 

Mr.  Sayward's  testimony,  in  part,  is  as  follows :  "  My 
experience  has  convinced  me  that  labor  thoroughly  or- 
ganized and  honestly  recognized  is  even  more  impor- 
tant for  the  employer  than  for  the  zvorkmen.  It  makes 
possible  a  working  method  between  the  two  parties 
which  removes  one  by  one  the  most  dangerous  elements 
of  conflict  and  misunderstanding."  Speaking  further, 
Mr.  Sayward  said :  "  that  either  for  the  building  trades 
or  other  lines  of  work,  these  intricate  and  involved 
matters  will  not  take  care  of  themselve§ ;  they  cannot 
safely  be  intrusted  to  one  of  the  interested  parties  alone ; 
both  parties  must  have  equal  concern,  must  act  jointly, 
not  only  in  their  own  interests,  but,  in  effect,  in  the 
interests  of  the  community." 

If  at  any  time  dififerences  do  arise  under  the  joint 


164  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

agreement,  or  if  they  arise  when  it  is  not  in  use  and 
trouble  seems  imminent,  then  concihation  or  voluntary 
arbitration  is  the  next  sensible  step.  It  is  safe  to  say  that 
there  is  scarcely  a  case  where  the  strike  or  the  lockout 
need  be  resorted  to  if  there  is  an  eminent  spirit  of  fair- 
ness on  hotli  sides.  Conciliation  and  fairness.  A  look- 
ing at  the  matter  from  the  standpoint  of  the  other,  a 
pocketing  of  pride  to  gain  something  larger  and  fairer 
and  more  satisfactory  in  the  end.  A  getting  away  from 
pure  fool  obstinacy  and  allowing  a  spirit  of  openness 
and  fairness  to  assert  itself  and  lead  to  what  will  prove 
to  be  a  wiser  course  and  a  better  end.  The  workmen  to 
be  fair  and  to  be  sure  they  are  making  no  unjust  de- 
mands, not  hasty  but  considerate  of  the  probable  dififi- 
culties  that  lie  in  the  employer's  way.  Employer  to  pass 
rapidly  beyond  the  foolish  and  inane  period  wdiere  "  this 
is  my  business  and  I  will  conduct  it  absolutely  to  suit 
myself  ;  "  "  I  will  not  be  dictated  to  ;  "  "  there  is  nothing 
to  arbitrate."  The  public  is  pretty  well  tired  now  of 
"  there  is  nothing  to  arbitrate,"  and  popular  disapproval 
will  soon  call  a  halt  upon  this  puerile  obstinacy  unless 
owner  or  manager  finds  sense  enough  to  abandon  it 
himself. 

All  that  is  needed  to  prevent  precipitated  labor 
troubles  —  strikes  and  lockouts  —  is  for  the  men  in 
overalls  and  the  owners  or  managers  of  industry  to 
grow  sufficiently  large  as  to  enable  them  to  throw  away 
their  prejudices  and  meet  as  they  meet  in  other  things, 
on  the  common-sense  platform  of  fraternity  and  hu- 
manity. Each  must  manifest  the  spirit  of  open  fairness, 
and  the  more  fullv  this  is  done  the  more  smoothly  and 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  165 

pleasantly  and  satisfactorily  will  the  negotiations  run. 
President  John  Mitchell  has  given  this  bit  of  testimony : 

"  I  have  never  seen  in  my  experience  a  strike  that 
could  not  have  been  averted  if  the  employers  and  the 
men  who  work  had  met  in  conference  before  the  strike 
was  started.  I  have  said  on  many  occasions  that  I  was 
opposed  to  strikes,  opposed  to  lockouts,  opposed  to  in- 
dustrial turmoil ;  that  I  favoured  peace,  but  always  with 
the  qualification  that  it  must  be  an  honourable  peace. 
There  will  never  be  peace  between  the  men  who  work 
and  those  who  employ  men  to  work  unless  that  peace 
guarantees  to  each  side  that  which  is  its  proper  due." 

Herman  Justi,  Commissioner  Illinois  Coal  Operators' 
Association,  has  said :  "  With  scarcely  an  exception, 
every  strike  that  has  taken  place  in  our  time,  even  where 
there  has  been  bloodshed  and  destruction  of  property, 
has  finally  been  settled  in  friendly  council." 

Speaking  then  of  the  plan  of  the  Coal  Operators'  As- 
sociation in  their  method  of  joint  agreements  with  their 
men  which  have  been  in  operation  for  a  great  many 
years,  Mr.  Justi  says :  "  Our  plan  is  to  prevent  these 
senseless  and  costly  strikes,  and  the  many  differences 
and  disputes  arising  between  master  and  men  which 
seem  to  place  them  in  the  attitude  of  enemies  to  each 
other,  are  settled  in  the  same  manner  in  which  the  most 
destructive  strikes  are  finally  settled,  z'/.c. :  by  meeting  in 
friendly  council,  where  we  try  self-control  long  enough 
to  enable  us  to  say :  '  Come,  let  us  reason  together.' 
This  is,  practically,  all  there  is  of  the  plan  pursued  in  the 
coal  mining  industry  of  Illinois,  and  of  this  plan  to  pre- 
vent strikes  and  to  promote  harmony  and  good  feeling  it 


i66  Tin-  Land  of  Living  Men 

can  be  said,  at  least,   that  it   is  the   fairest  thus    far 
offered."  " 

But  what  a  commentary  upon  the  experience  of  the 
past  twenty-five  or  thirty  years  to  know  that  finally 
]:)ractically  all  strikes  are  settled  by  the  very  means  that 
could  have  prevented  their  ever  occurring  had  more 
real  ability  or,  to  speak  more  plainly,  more  plain  ordi- 
nary common-sense  prevailed  on  one  side  or  the  other, 
or  on  both. 

As  soon  as  it  becomes  apparent  that  employer  and 
workmen  are  unable  to  adjust  their  differences  through 
conciliation  or  voluntary  arbitration,  then  by  the  ordi- 
nary course,  the  strike  on  the  part  of  the  one,  or  the 
lockout  on  the  part  of  the  other,  is  resorted  to.  What 
the  results  sometimes  are,  when  this  method  assumes 
control,  is  well-known  to  all.  Upon  the  public  the 
chief  burden  is  then  thrown.  It  has  always  seemed 
to  me  that  right  at  this  point  it  is  the  privilege  and  the 
duty  of  the  public  to  have  its  say.  I  know  that  many  la- 
bor men,  and  among  them  some  eminent  labor  leaders, 
hold  a  different  view.  To  deprive  labor  of  the  power  to 
strike  they  believe,  and  honestly,  would  be  to  take  from  it 
one  of  its  most  effective  weapons.  I  would  not  deprive 
labor  of  its  power  to  strike ;  and  the  more  thoroughly 
and  closely  labor  is  organized  the  greater  does  this 
ability  become.  There  is  probably  no  one  who  believes 
more  thoroughly  in  the  good  that  is  to  result  both  to 
worker  and  employer,  as  well  as  to  the  public  at  large, 
from  a  continually  growing  and  developing  organiza- 
tion of  labor.  But  the  larger  good  must  always  be  kept 
in  mind,  and  when  the  calling  of  a  strike  or  the  institut- 


The  Land  of  Lk'iiig  Men  167 

mg  of  a  lockout  becomes  the  supreme  necessity,  then 
the  principle  of  compulsory  arbitration  is  undoubtedly 
a  sound  one,  even  as  it  has  proven  so  completely  to  be, 
much  that  we  hear  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  in 
New  Zealand,  in  Australia,  for  example. 

Were  emi)loyer  and  workmen  the  only  ones  concerned 
in  the  matter  of  compulsory  arbitration  then  it  would 
present  a  somewhat,  in  fact  an  entirely,  different  aspect. 
But  even  then  I  should  thoroughly  believe  in  the  prin- 
ciple, when  the  strike  or  the  lockout  would  appear  the 
only  way  of  adjusting  the  differences.  Men  or  groups 
of  men  in  the  mad,  fighting  condition,  are  not  as  cap- 
able of  adjusting  difficulties  as  fairly — and  there  can 
be  no  lasting  peace  unless  mutual  fairness  enters  —  as 
an  able  and  impartial  body  of  men  selected  for  this 
purpose.  And  the  enormous  losses  entailed  upon  both 
sides  when  the  strike  is  at  all  long  drawn  out,  are,  it 
seems  to  me,  thoroughly  ill-advised.  The  ability  to 
strike  enables  the  workers  to  bring  their  difficulties  o^ 
grievances  to  the  point  where,  were  they  not  strong 
enough  to  possess  this  ability,  they  would  be  in  a  most 
deplorable  condition. 

Two  men  have  a  difference.  The  time  was  when, 
worked  up  by  rage  into  a  fury  —  thoroughly  mad, 
one  species  of  temporary  insanity  —  they  took  their 
bludgeons  and  pounded  away  at  the  skulls  of  each  other. 
We  have  grown.  When  two  men  have  a  difference  they 
are  not  allowed  to  go  into  the  street  and  bludgeon  one 
another,  or  deal  with  one  another  in  the  manner  of  even 
the  modern  fisticuff  manner.  The  public  has  long  ago 
decreed  that  they  take  their  differences  in  an  orderly 


i68  The  Land  of  Livi)ig  Men 

and  common-sense  way  before  a  man  or  a  body  of  men, 
more  calm  and  reasoning,  and  hence  more  capal^le  of 
determining  the  right  of  the  matter  at  issue.  This  is  our 
method,  the  method  that  We  have  found  far  better  than 
the  former  brute  method.  There  is  no  one  of  average 
intelHgence  who  would  even  think  of  appearing  in 
public  to  advocate  a  return  to  the  earlier  methods.  In 
this,  however,  the  public  is  scarcely  disturbed,  or  at 
most  but  a  few  persons,  and  then  for  but  a  few  moments 
at  most.  Fisticuffs  are  ordinarily  not  lengthy  affairs.  Is 
there  not  a  thousand  times  more  reason  for  compelling 
this  same  sane,  common-sense  method  when  it  comes  to 
the  disputes  not  of  two  men,  but  of  two  groups  of  men 
that  may  last  for  days  or  even  for  many  weeks,  and 
Vv'here  the  entire  community  is  endangered  as  to  life  or 
limb,  where  it  is  inconvenienced,  and  all  of  its  natural 
and  normal  relations  demoralized,  where  it  is  subjected 
at  times  to  tremendous  losses,  and  where  sometimes  for 
weeks  it  is  compelled  simply  to  remain  quiet  and  look 
on  at  these  two  groups  struggling  without  reason  be- 
cause each  is  animated  by  the  desire  for  the  c[uestionable 
glory  of  saying  "  we  beat  "  ?  I  am  not  saying  that  "  we 
beat  "  is  always  the  animating  principle  on  the  part  of 
the  contending  parties.  That  in  some  cases  it  is,  that  in 
many  cases  it  is,  is  all  too  evident,  and  sometimes  when 
a  struggle  of  this  kind  has  been  entered  upon,  with  the 
greatest  of  reasons,  it  has  frequently  occurred  that  as 
the  conflict  became  extended  the  "  we  beat  "  business 
became  the  controlling  principle.  The  strike  or  the 
lockout  is  too  much  a  matter  of  vital  public  concern 
to  enable  it  to  be  used  upon  the  slightest  pretext  on  the 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  169 

part  of  groups  of  hot-headed  men.  I  say  hot-headed 
advisedly  because,  were  it  not  true  of  one  side  or  the 
other  or  of  both,  then  a  less  crude  and  bungling  and  a 
more  common-sense  method  of  settlement  not  only 
could,  but  would  be  found. 

There  was  perhaps  a  justification,  or  at  least  a  reason 
for  the  bludgeon  and  the  pommeling  method  of  settle- 
ment of  differences  between  the  two  men.  In  order  to 
reach  the  period  of  the  "  reason  method,"  this  period 
had  to  be  passed  through.  There  zvas  also  the  same 
justification  or  reason  for  the  strike  and  lockout  method 
in  the  disputes  between  two  groups  of  men.  This  crude 
method  was  at  first  natural.  We  have  too  much  com- 
mon-sense in  other  matters,  and  in  matters  of  a  very 
kindred  nature  to  allow  it  further  to  be  said  that  this 
method  is  any  longer  necessary  or  even  natural.  We  be- 
come so  accustomed  to  certain  conditions  that  at  times 
we  do  not  move  on  as  rapidly  as  is  well  for  us. 

I  beg  to  repeat  the  statement  that  when  the  strike  or 
the  lockout  is  resorted  to,  there  is  a  disinct  threefold 
loss,  to  the  worker,  to  the  employer,  to  the  public.  Am 
I  right  ?  Some  time  ago  witnessed  a  strike  in  Chicago, 
and  it  terminated  rather  to  the  disadvantage,  if  any- 
thing, of  the  side  that  called  it.  Here  are  a  few  facts 
taken  at  random  from  a  general. summary  made  imme- 
diately after  by  the  Chicago  Tribune :  Duration  in  days, 
a  hundred  and  five  ;  number  of  garment  workers  origin- 
ally involved,  seventeen ;  total  number  of  teamsters 
eventually  involved,  four  thousand  six  hundred  and 
twenty  ;  persons  killed  in  strike  violence,  twenty-one  ; 
persons  injured  (reported  by  police),  four  hundred  and 


170  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

fifteen  ;  police  and  deputy  sheriffs  on  strike  duty,  five 
thousand  seven  hundred  ;  cost  to  city  and  county  for  ex- 
tra pohce  and  extra  deputy  sheriff  protection,  four  hun- 
dred and  six  thousand  five  hundred  dollars ;  loss  to 
teamsters  in  wages,  and  cost  to  unions  for  strike  bene- 
fits, one  million  fifty  thousand  dollars ;  cost  to  employ- 
ers (wages  and  lodging  of  strike-breakers  and  protec- 
tion of  wagons),  two  million  dollars;  shrinkage  in 
wholesale,  retail  and  freight  business  (estimated), 
six  million  dollars.  Here  then  the  cost  to  the  unions 
was  a  trifle  over  a  million  dollars,  to  the  employers,  two 
million,  while  the  public  had  to  pay  to  the  tune  of  be- 
tween six  and  seven  million  dollars,  besides  shouldering 
all  the  exasperating  inconveniences  and  a  compulsory 
witnessing  of  all  the  diabolical  happenings  that  were 
thrown  in  its  way. 

If  this  virtual  defeat  for  the  unions  was  caused,  as  it 
is  claimed,  by  incompetent  or  self-seeking  leadership, 
so  much  the  worse  for  the  unions  that  permitted  such 
leadership  to  hold  sway  and  to  lead  them  into  such 
positions  where  defeat  was  almost  a  foregone  conclu- 
sion. How  long  will  it  take  organized  labor  to  learn  its 
lessons  along  this  score  ? 

You  will  recall  that  in  the  summer  of  1900  there  was 
a  street-car  strike  in  St.  Louis.  The  side  in  error,  the 
side  chiefly  to  blame  in  this  strike,  was  the  company, 
and  when  it  was  ended  the  chief  defeat  was  also  on  its 
side.  In  this  strike  the  loss  to  the  men  in  wages  was  a 
trifle  less  than  a  half  million  dollars;  the  loss  to  the 
company  in  fares,  in  operating,  and  in  damage  to  cars 
and  plant  was  two  million  dollars ;   the  loss  to  the  city 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  lyi 

in  business  alone,  to  say  nothing  of  loss  in  extra  police 
and  deputy  sheriff  needs,  was  thirty  million  dollars ; 
there  were  fourteen  killed,  seventy  injured  by  bullets, 
a  hundred  and  fifty  injured  otherwise.  Here  then  is  a 
loss  —  in  money  alone  of  thirty  million  dollars  on  the 
part  of  the  public  compared  to  a  combined  loss  of  a  little 
less  than  two  and  a  half  million  dollars  on  the  part  of 
the  company  and  its  workmen.  Who  shall  say  that  the 
right  or  even  the  duty  on  the  part  of  the  public  in  this 
case  is  not  of  a  very  clear-cut  and  certain  nature. 
Under  the  head  "  The  St.  Louis  Strike  Folly  "  an  edi- 
torial in  the  Boston  Daily  Globe  at  the  conclusion  of  the 
strike  spoke  as  follows :  "  This  strike  was  begun  inno- 
cently enough  on  May  8th.  On  that  day  3,500  men 
stopped  work.  It  was  a  fight  on  the  part  of  the  com- 
pany to  destroy  the  labor  union,  and  because  the  com- 
pany has  succeeded  in  compelling  300  union  men  to  go 
back  to  work  and  leave  the  union,  and  moreover  suc- 
ceeded in  importing  more  than  3,000  men  to  run  its  cars 
day  and  night,  it  calls  this  a  '  victory.'  A  few  such  '  vic- 
tories '  as  this  scattered  over  this  continent  would  create 
a  general  civil  war,  in  which  victory  would  finally  poise 
at  the  point  of  the  federal  bayonet.  For  a  corporation  to 
call  a  settlement  forced  by  such  conditions  '  victory  '  is 
a  libel  on  the  English  language.  Yet  the  unions,  ani- 
mated by  the  same  spirit  that  possesses  the  company, 
claim  a  '  victory,'  too. 

"  No,  this  is  not  '  victory,'  in  this  day  when  reason 
and  the  moral  sense  are  supposed  to  have  superseded 
the  gun  and  the  bludgeon.  It  is  defeat,  dismal  defeat 
for  both  the  company  and  the  men.    The  only  victory  is 


172  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

found  in  the  agreement  of  both  sides  to  resume  their 
old  relations,  forgive  and  forget  old  scores  and  begin  all 
over  again  to  be  reasonable  human  beings.  If  anybody 
can  conceive  a  victory  after  such  disgraceful  proceed- 
ings, where  does  it  come  in  for  the  700,000  people  of 
the  town  who  have  been  inconvenienced  for  nearly  two 
months  and  whose  losses  in  business  are  reckoned  at 
$30,000,000?  How  many  taxpayers  of  St.  Louis  \\\\\ 
feel  like  calling  this  a  victory  by  and  by,  when  the  costs 
have  to  be  settled? 

"  This  strike  has  had  some  features  that  are  liable  to 
sadly  demoralize  the  calculations  of  corporations  who 
fancy  that  the  victory  is  won  as  soon  as  they  succeed  in 
hiring  men  to  take  the  places  of  the  strikers.  This  was 
the  case  in  St.  Louis.  The  company  has  '  broken  the 
back  '  of  the  strike,  but  in  breaking  that  back  it  was  at 
the  same  time  depleting  its  treasury  so  rapidly  that  it 
was  forced  to  make  an  agreement  with  the  strikers  in 
order  to  save  itself  from  impending  ruin. 

"  Such  a  strike  as  this  ought  never  again  to  be  pos- 
sible in  this  country.  It  cost  the  company  over 
$1,500,000  in  fares  alone  for  its  '  victory.'  It  cost  the 
men  $500,000  in  wages.  It  brought  disgrace  upon  a 
supposed  civilized  American  city.  The  fierce  boycott 
has  been  the  cause  of  cowardly  murders  and  assaults 
upon  women.  It  has  engendered  bitterness  among  fam- 
ilies and  friends  that  will  rankle  for  many  years  to 
come.  And  all  for  what?  In  order  that  somebody 
might  finally  be  able  to  boast  of  a  victory.  Now  both 
parties  have  fought  to  a  standstill,  and  both,  maimed, 
crippled  and  disgraced,  have  been  forced  to  an  agree- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  173 

ment  which  each  calls  a  '  victory.'  How  childish  and 
how  unworthy  of  intelligent  men !  Arbitration  could 
have  easily  settled  all  this  when  it  began.  Now  nothing 
is  settled,  except  the  fact  that  both  sides  have  virtually 
been  defeated.  When  will  men  ever  learn  anything 
from  these  sad  experiences  ?  " 

To  say  that  it  is  advisable  longer  to  allow  two  groups 
of  men  to  engage  in  such  a  disruption  of  public  order 
and  decency,  throwing  this  enormous  expense  upon  the 
shoulders  of  the  general  public,  simply  because  one 
party  or  the  other,  and  generally  the  one  least  in  the 
right,  is  so  bull-headed,  or  so  lacking  in  ordinary  brain 
capacity  as  well  as  in  business  insight  as  to  be  incapable 
of  adjusting  these  difficulties  without  a  resort  to  such 
clumsy  and  brutal  methods,  seems  to  me  to  be  almost 
an  insult  to  the  most  ordinary  degree  of  public  intelli- 
gence. I  don't  think  there  is  an  average  of  one  person 
in  fifty  who,  cognizant  of  all  the  facts,  really  believes 
that  it  is  either  advisable  or  possessing  even  the  equali- 
ties of  the  most  rudimentary  common-sense.  What  a 
commentary  then  upon  the  lack  of  initiative  or  move- 
ment on  our  part  to  allow  this  method  with  all  its  at- 
tendant horrors,  and  with  practically  nothing  in  its  jus- 
tification, still  to  be  employed.  Especially  is  this  true 
when  there  is  already  a  clearly  demonstrated  better 
method. 

When  all  other  methods  are  exhausted,  and  it  comes 
to  the  strike  on  the  one  hand  or  the  lockout  on  the 
other,  then  compulsory  arbitration  in  the  form  of  an 
industrial  court  should  step  in  and  take  hold  of  the  case 
and  render  decision,  and  the  contending  parties  should 


174  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

renew  their  original  relations  as  nearly  as  possible  until 
such  decision  is  rendered.  A  State  Board  of  Arbitra- 
tion, with  powers  along  its  line  of  a  nature  somewhat 
similar  to  those  of  the  Public  Service  Commission, 
along  its  line,  and  with  powers  to  enforce  its  decisions 
where  such  enforcement  is  necessary  on  its  part,  would 
bring  order  and  great  good  out  of  the  present  anarch- 
istic and  practically  criminal  conditions  that  now  ordi- 
narily prevail.  Time  would  unquestionably  demon- 
strate the  wisdom  of  the  creation  of  such  a  board  in 
every  state. 

Sometime  ago  Carroll  D.  Wright,  then  United  States 
Commissioner  of  Labor,  in  an  article  in  the  North 
American  Reziew  gave  some  of  his  findings  in  connec- 
tion with  an  investigation  of  the  matter  of  strikes  in  the 
United  States  since  1880.  Between  1881  and  1900  there 
were  about  twenty-three  thousand  strikes,  which  would 
be  an  average  of  more  than  a  thousand  a  year.  Nearly 
fifty-one  per  cent  of  all  these  strikes  were  successful, 
thirteen  per  cent  succeeded  partly,  while  the  remaining 
thirty-six  per  cent  failed.  Over  six  million  employees 
were  involved  and  were  out  of  work  for  a  longer  or  a 
shorter  period.  Their  loss  owing  to  idleness  was  nearly 
two  hundred  and  fifty-eight  million  dollars.  The  loss 
to  their  employers  was  about  a  hundred  and  twenty- 
three  million  dollars,  or  a  little  less  than  one-half  the 
loss  to  them. 

I  have  given  just  the  losses  from  a  monetary  stand- 
point, and  to  the  two  parties  engaged  in  these  indus- 
trial wars.  The  still  greater  losses  to  the  public  at 
large,  not  only  from  a  monetary  standpoint,  but  in  al- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  175 

most  innumerable  ways  otherwise,  can  be  imagined  by 
the  aid  of  the  detailed  statistics  relating  to  the  two 
strikes  already  mentioned. 

One  of  the  concluding  observations  by  Mr.  Wright 
in  this  article  is  abundantly  worthy  of  notice:  "  It  is 
recognized  now,  that  labor  conflicts  grow  out  of  in- 
creasing intelligence.  The  avoidance  or  adjustment  of 
such  conflicts  must  be  the  result  of  incr-eased  intelli- 
gence. Fools  do  not  strike;  it  is  only  men  who  have 
intelligence  enough  to  recognize  their  condition  that 
make  use  of  this  last  resort.  With  increased  intelli- 
gence they  will  look  back  upon  the  strike  period  as  one 
of  development;  and  when  they  shall  have  accommo- 
dated themselves  to  the  new  conditions,  and  when  em- 
ployers shall  have  recognized  the  increased  intelligence 
of  their  employees,  these  matters  will  be  handled  in 
such  a  way  as  to  prevent  in  the  future  a  repetition  of 
incidents  like  those  which  are  chronicled  in  the  statis- 
tical history  of  the  strikes  of  the  last  twenty  years." 

It  is  generally  the  case  in  the  majority  of  strikes,  that 
the  loss  to  the  workers,  who  are  far  less  able  to  stand  it, 
.is  considerably  greater  than  that  sustained  by  the  em- 
ployers. The  latter,  moreover,  have  a  way  of  making 
the  public  finally  pay  their  losses,  in  addition  to  the  still 
heavier  losses  that  are  always  thrown  upon  it. 

Certainly  the  word  dense  is  quite  applicable  to  the 
public  unless  we  take  some  lessons  from  this  great 
array  of  happenings  that  has  come  to  pass,  and  unless 
we  now  move  speedily  along  the  path  of  an  insistence 
upon  compulsory  arbitration  in  that  class  of  cases  where 
no  other  method  of  settlement  but  open  industrial  war- 


lyG  The  Land  of  Lk'ing  Men 

fare  is  able  to  be  reached  by  employer  and  workmen. 
It  seems  to  me  there  can  be  no  shadow  of  a  doubt  in 
regard  to  this  when  it  comes  to  strikes  in  connection 
with  any  public  service  industry,  or  anything  where 
the  inconvenience  or  loss  to  the  public  is  specially  great. 

Organized  labor  stands  at  one  of  the  most  critical 
periods  in  its  history  at  the  present  time,  in  this  country 
at  least.  And,  although  I  believe  it  is  coming  through 
successfully,  it  nevertheless  will  receive  some  strong 
knocks  and  will  suffer  some  severe  and  entirely  unnec- 
essary set  backs,  unless  some  of  its  worst  practices,  or 
rather  those  of  some  of  its  members  and  sections,  are 
quickly  eradicated. 

Flushed  with  pride  undoubtedly  in  attaining  to  the 
degree  of  power  and  recognition  it  has  so  far  attained 
to,  the  members  of  some  groups  of  organized  labor, 
especially  in  the  larger  cities,  are  already  showing 
marked  symptoms  of  severe  attacks  of  the  "  swelled 
head,"  and  their  conception  of  their  rights  is  getting 
so  fine  that  the  rights  of  those  employing  them  and  of 
the  general  public,  are  now  so  minimized  that  they  have 
become  of  almost  microscopic  proportions.  Especially 
is  this  true  in  those  lines  of  work  where  the  public  is 
concerned  rather  than  the  employer  of  labor  in  works. 
And,  when  organized  labor,  "  The  Union  "  becomes  a 
shield  for  incompetent  or  shirking  workmen,  or  backs 
them  in  giving  a  wholly  inadequate  day's  work  for  a 
good  high  wage,  or  in  carelessness  of  the  rights  and 
amenities  due  to  others,  or  a  reasonable  care  of  their 
belongings,  or  when  it  becomes  too  technical,  or  too 
fine  in  its  rules  and  its  methods  and  its  general  pro- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  177 

gramme,  then  it  will  alienate  an  intelligent  and  other- 
wise sympathetic  public,  so  that  its  losses  will  quickly 
begin  to  balance  its  gains,  and  it  will  by  its  own  fool- 
hardiness,  set  a  limitation  to  its  advance  and  progress, 
that  otherwise  could  not  be  set. 

Wherever  the  teaching  or  the  influence  of  the  union 
is  for  greater  gain  for  the  individual  members  —  shorter 
hours,  higher  wage,  or  whatever  the  gain,  if  it  is  not 
accompanied  by  that  of  greater  interest  and  a  greater 
degree  of  efficiency  for  the  benefit  of  the  employer, 
whether  company  or  individual  employer,  the  union  is 
doing  its  members  a  distinct  injury  and  also  an  injury 
to  the  public,  and  such  a  union  deserves  not  only  the 
condemnation  but  also  the  execration  of  all  decent  and 
healthy-minded  citizens ;  not  only  does  it  deserve  this 
but  this  it  will  surely  get. 

If  the  animating  motive  is  continual  getting,  with 
thoughts  only  of  "  us  "  and  "  ours  "  without  adequate 
return,  and  no  sense  of  its  relationship  with  the  great 
public  welfare,  then  it  will  soon  fall  into  the  pit  of  arro- 
gance and  pure  self-seeking  without  due  consideration 
of  the  rights  of  others,  rebellion  against  which  was  the 
very  thing  that  brought  the  labor  organization  into 
existence.  A  permanent  organization  or  institution 
cannot  be  built  upon  any  such  basis. 

A  "  labor  trust  "  is  just  as  obnoxious  to  the  great 
common  people  as  is  a  capitalistic  trust  and  they  will 
stand  for  one  no  more  than  they  will  stand  for  the 
other,  and  moreover  they  will  in  time  find  a  method  of 
putting  down  and  out  of  business  the  one,  the  same  as 
they  surely  will  the  other.     And  again,  if  browbeating 


178  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

becomes  too  dominant  a  factor,  if  terrorism,  and  mur- 
der, and  kindred  villanous  methods  become  too  frequent 
or  habitual,  and  too  fully  condoned  by  organized  labor 
in  efforts  to  coerce  other  equally  honest  and  worthy  men 
who  cannot  see  their  way  to  sanction  all  their  methods, 
or  still  others  who  are  too  brave  or  too  manly  to  sit 
idly  by  and  see  their  families  driven  and  pinched  by 
want,  then  also  a  suicidal  blow  will  be  struck  that  will 
be  a  tremendous  hindrance  to  what  would  otherwise  be 
a  more  gradual  but  a  permanent  growth.  The  methods 
of  the  brute  are  used  only  where  brains  are  not  equal 
to  the  task  it  is  desired  to  accomplish.  In  this  way 
many  of  the  strongest  and  best  men  in  the  labor  ranks 
will  be  turned  against  it,  and  will  in  time  become  a  most 
powerful  element  backed  by  the  great  public  sympathy 
to  be  reckoned  with.  Better  grow  a  little  more  slowly, 
and  in  accordance  with  just  and  righteous  laws,  and 
hence  more  surely  and  permanently,  than  to  try  the 
short-cut  methods,  for  in  this  way  many  get  swamped 
and  tremendously  delayed,  while  others  never  "  arrive." 
Those  of  the  policies  and  methods  above  described  be- 
come a  sore  upon  the  great  body  of  splendid,  honour- 
able labor,  which  can  ill  afford  to  condone  or  stand 
for  such  methods ;  and  personally,  I  do  not  believe  it 
will  very  much  longer,  nor  even  countenance  them. 

Does  this  seem  like  plain  speaking?  The  only  excuse 
to  be  offered,  if  indeed  any  excuse  were  necessary,  is 
that  it  is  spoken  by  one  of  labor's  truest  friends,  and 
friends  don't  snivel,  neither  do  they  fawn,  and  having 
no  ulterior  ends  to  gain,  there  is  no  need  for  reticence 
in  relation  to  plain  truth. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  179 

I  believe  the  time  is  rapidly  approaching,  and  it  may 
be  indeed  immediately  upon  us  as  some  signs  seem  to 
indicate,  when  labor  is  going  to  push  squarely  into  the 
sphere  of  political  action,  even  as  the  great  masses  of 
the  people  are  moving  along  the  lines  of  political  action, 
unhampered  as  never  before,  because  of  more  open 
vision,  by  political  machines,  or  dictated  to  by  notorious 
old  hacks  as  party  bosses. 

The  day  has  already  arrived  for  this  in  England  ;  and 
to-day  —  the  results  of  a  late  election  —  we  see  a  splen- 
did body  of  nearly  fifty  labor  members  in  Parliament, 
and  if  even  fairly  wise  and  discreet  in  their  actions,  as 
I  fully  believe  they  will  be,  their  numbers  will  con- 
tinue to  increase,  and  there  will  be  a  strong  party  right 
in  Parliament  thinking  and  w^orking  directly  for  the 
interests  of  the  great  common  people,  not  so  hopelessly 
impotent,  so  far  as  actual  accomplishment  is  concerned, 
as  have  been  most  of  the  political  parties  there  during 
the  last  decade  or  more.  I  have  long  thought,  looking 
at  the  numbers  of  the  one  and  of  the  other,  that  the 
time  had  nearly  come  in  Great  Britain  for  the  doing 
away  of  the  House  of  Lords,  and  substituting  in  its 
place  shall  we  say,  a  House  of  Labor.  But,  things 
move  sometimes  in  a  most  indirect  way,  and  it  may  be 
that  through  this  the  beginning  of  a  long  needed  labor 
and  people's  moverrfent,  this  result  in  effect  would  be 
brought  about. 

Who  knows  but  that  one  of  its  greatest  needs,  per- 
haps the  greatest  need  it  has  to-day,  will  be  served  by 
this  new  movement  —  that  England  and  Scotland  and 
Ireland  will  more  rapidly  be  freed  from  the  centuries 


i8o  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

old  curse  of  landlordism,  and  that  the  land  now  so  held 
will  in  some  wise  method  be  brought  back  to  the  use  of 
the  people.  The  Labor  Party  in  co-operation  with 
the  progressive  wing  of  the  Liberal  Party,  should  be 
able  to  bring  about  this  sorely  and  long  needed  end. 

And  then  if,  speaking  along  general  good  lines,  this 
combination  could  give  to  Great  Britain  a  new,  a  better 
and  broader  universal  public-school  system,  something, 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  akin  to  our  own,  or  better  still, 
then  they  would  at  once  be  dealing  with  one  of  its  great- 
est delinquencies  and  one  of  its  greatest  and  most  press- 
ing needs.  In  this  way  numbers  of  other  ailments, 
resulting  directly  from  one  or  the  other  of  these,  or  from 
both,  would  begin  to  be  healed  without  any  other  special 
direct  treatment.  The  excessive  amount  of  drinking 
among  the  working  classes,  and  among  both  men  and 
women,  the  bane  and  the  curse  of  this  phase  of  British 
life  to-day,  and  now  almost  universally  recognized  as 
such,  would  begin  at  once  to  be  on  the  decrease.  It 
comes  primarily  from  the  vacancy,  the  hopelessness,  the 
want  and  the  despair  in  the  lives  of  these  vast  numbers 
of  Britain's  population  that  have  been  induced  directly 
or  indirectly  by  these  two  causes,  probably  as  much  or 
more  than  by  all  other  causes  combined.  And,  speaking 
along  the  same  line,  who  knows  but  that  the  splendid 
Socialist  body  in  the  German  Parliament  to-day,  al- 
ready numbering  between  seventy  and  eighty  members, 
and  steadily  increasing  in  numbers  and  in  influence,  will 
have  as  its  essential  or  primary  mission,  the  freeing  of 
Germany  of  what  royal  and  the  i)rivileged  classes  have 
evidently  neither  the  brains  nor  the  inclination  to  throw 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  i8i 

off,  even  for  the  relief  of  millions  of  people,  the  mon- 
strous military  system,  under  which  it  labors  year 
after  year. 

I  think  this  new  Labor  Party  in  England  as  it  grows 
will  give  its  aid  also  in  dealing  more  humanely,  hon- 
ourably and  hence  in  a  more  statesman-like  manner 
with  India. 

And  to  labor  in  politics  in  this  country  I  would  say, 
remember  a  fact  accentuated  by  the  fact  of  Britain's 
high  and  enviable  position  as  regards  cleanliness  in 
politics,  that  we  of  the  United  States,  notwithstanding 
oui;  inclination  to  think  otherwise,  are  among  the  lowest 
of  tlie  low  in  this  respect,  especially  in  our  municipal 
politics.  And  remember  that  this  condition  has  come 
about  because  we  as  a  people  have  so  allowed  commer- 
cialism and  large  moneyed  interests  to  take  from  us  and 
convert  to  themselves  such  valuable  properties  that  their 
greed  for  more  has  become  so  insatiable  that  no  man 
who  fills  public  office  to-day,  municipal,  state,  or  na- 
tional, is  sure  to  escape  their  blighting  and  benumbing 
influences.  Hence,  be  careful  in  your  nominees  and  in 
men  to  whom  you  give  your  political  support.  A  direct 
or  an  indirect  gift,  depending  upon  whether  at  any  par- 
ticular centre  these  agencies  composed  of  our  "  success- 
ful "  and  "  respectable  "  fellow-citizens,  are  bold  and 
brazen  in  their  methods,  or  very  plausible  and  smooth 
and  cunning  —  a  direct  or  an  indirect  gift,  to  repeat, 
of  fifty  thousand  or  a  hundred  thousand  or  more  dol- 
lars, is  a  very  sore  temptation  to  a  man  in  moderate  cir- 
cumstances, or  to  a  poor  man.  The  essential  thing  is 
to  have  men  of  knoivn  and  proven  integrity.     Better 


i82  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

a  man  of  less  culture,  or  even  more  liable  to  errors  in 
judgment,  than  one  subject  to  the  money  bags  of  the 
"  successful  "  and  "  respectable  "  despoiler,  the  arch 
enemy  of  American  institutions  and  of  American  citi- 
zenship to-day. 

Another  point  —  hoping  it  will  be  received  in  the 
spirit  in  which  it  is  given :  Be  not  displeased  or  dissat- 
isfied, if  those  you  elect,  or  those  to  whom  you  give 
your  support,  do  not  vote  favourably  for  every  labor 
bill  that  is  proposed.  Labor's  welfare,  and  the  welfare 
of  any  class  or  portion,  must  be  always  subservient  to 
the  general  welfare.  Class  legislation  is  always  in  ti^iie 
unsatisfactory  and  destructive  in  its  results.  Class  leg- 
islation emanating  from  labor  alone,  would  be  but 
slightly  preferable  if  any  to  that  emanating  from  capital 
alone.  Only  as  the  general  good  is  g^uarded  and 
fostered  and  advanced  will  that  of  any  clkss  or  por- 
tion be  really  and  permanently  conserved.  Here  is 
an  inestimable  service  that  lies  in  the  power,  if  it 
lies  in  the  heart,  of  labor  to  render  itself  and  the 
nation. 

There  is  indeed  a  prophetic  insight  in  the  words  of 
the  "  Good  Gray  Bard  of  Democracy,"  words  that  were 
written  by  Walt  Whitman  nearly  forty  years  ago : 
"  I  expect  to  see  the  day  when  the  like  of  the  present 
personnel  of  the  g'overnments  —  federal,  state,  muni- 
cipal, military  and  naval  —  will  be  looked  upon  with 
derision,  and  when  qualified  mechanics  and  young  men 
will  reach  Congress  and  other  official  stations,  sent  in 
their  working-  costumes,  fresh  from  their  benches  and 
tools  and  returning  to  them  again  with  dignity.     The 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  183 

young  fellows  must  prepare  to  do  credit  to  this  destiny, 
for  the  stuff  is  in  them." 

The  following-  are  a  few  characteristic  words  from  a 
speech  to  his  constituency  by  an  able  member  of  the 
British  Labor  Party,  who  has  served  with  great  abil- 
ity in  Parliament  before,  and  who  in  spite  of  much 
strenuous  opposition  was  re-elected  at  a  recent  elec- 
tion by  a  majority  of  something  upwards  of  ten  thou- 
sand votes.  "  The  working  class,  professional  men  and 
shopkeepers  are  all  struggling  —  some  few  to  make  a 
competence,  but  the  great  majority  to  earn  a  livelihood. 
Millions  are  steeped  in  poverty  whilst  millions  more 
are  but  one  degree  removed  from  it.  While  the  useful 
classes  toil  and  suffer,  the  owners  of  land  and  capital, 
and  the  schemers  and  gamblers  of  the  Stock  Exchange, 
are  heaping  up  untold  wealth.  Whilst  the  poor  die  for 
lack  of  the  barest  necessaries  of  life,  the  rich  revel  in  a 
riot  of  excess.  Great  accumulations  of  wealth  menace 
our  liberties,  control  the  great  London  organs  of  the 
press,  lead  us  into  wars  abroad,  and  poison  the  wells  of 
public  life  at  home.  Landlordism  and  capitalism  are 
the  upper  and  nether  millstones  between  which  the  life 
of  the  common  people  is  being  ground  to  dust. 

"  My  one  object  in  politics  is  to  aid  in  creating  tlie 
public  opinion  which  will  sweep  away  the  causes  zvhich 
produce  poverty,  vice,  crime,  drunkenness  and  im- 
morality, and  introduce  an  era  of  freedom,  fraternity 
and  equality.  This  ideal  state  cannot  be  reached  at  one 
step,  but  much  can  be  done  to  mitigate  some  of  the 
graver  evils  arising  out  of  our  present  system  of  wealth 
production.    The  immediate  object  of  the  Labor  Party 


184  TJic  Land  of  Liz-iiig  Men 

is  to  create  a  driving  force  in  politics  which  will  over- 
come the  inertia  of  politicians  in  regard  to  social  re- 
forms, and  give  the  nation  a  strong,  true  lead  along  the 
paths  which  make  for  national  righteousness.  To  see 
that  children  are  properly  fed  and  cared  for,  that  the 
able  are  given  an  opportunity  to  work,  and  that  comfort 
is  brought  into  the  life  of  the  aged,  are  objects  worth 
striving  for.  These  things  lie  outside  the  domain  of 
ordinary  party  politics,  but  they  must  be  attended  to 
if  the  nation  is  to  be  saved  from  decay;  and  should  I 
again  be  returned  as  your  representative,  it  will  be  ni}- 
main  concern  to  see  that  they  are  attended  to. 

"  As  a  Democrat,  I  am  opposed  to  every  form  of 
hereditary  rule,  and  in  favour  of  conferring  full  and 
unfettered  powers  upon  the  common  people.  In  this 
connection  I  include  women  as  well  as  men." 

I  think  it  is  peculiarly  fitting  that  an  utterance  of 
Lincoln  close  this  part :  * 

"  In  my  present  position  I  could  scarcely  be  justified 
were  I  to  omit  raising  a  warning  voice  against  the  ap- 
proach of  returning  despotisms.  It  is  not  needed  nor 
fitting  here  that  a  general  argument  should  be  made  in 
favour  of  popular  institutions,  but  there  is  one  point 
not  so  hackneyed  to  which  I  ask  a  brief  attention.  It 
is  the  efifort  to  place  capital  .on  an  equal  footing  with, 
if  not  above,  labor  in  the  structure  of  government.  It 
is  assumed  that  labor  is  available  only  in  connection 
with  capital ;  that  nobody  lal)ors  unless  somebody  else 
knowing  capital  somehow  by  the  use  of  it  induces  hini 

*  In  Message  to  Congress,  December  3,  ]^6\, 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  185 

to  labor.  But  capital  is  the  fruit  of  labor  and  could 
never  have  existed  if  labor  had  not  first  existed.  La- 
bor is  the  superior  of  capital  and  deserves  much  the 
higher  consideration.  No  men  living  are  more  worthy 
to  be  trusted  than  those  who  toil  up  from  poverty ;  none 
less  inclined  to  take  or  touch  aught  which  they  have 
not  honestly  earned.  Let  them  beware  of  surrendering 
a  political  power  which  they  already  possess,  and  which, 
if  surrendered,  will  surely  be  used  to  close  the  door  of 
advancement  against  such  as  they  and  to  fix  new  dis- 
abilities and  burden  upon  them  until  all  of  liberty  shall 
be  lost." 

Prophetic  words,  spoken  of  all  who  labor,  and  also 
words  which  show  Lincoln's  matchless  faith  in  the 
great  common  people.  He  came  from  them.  He  knew 
them.  He  loved  them.  Can  anyone  have  a  doubt  as  to 
where  he  would  stand  in  connection  with  the  great 
and  pressing  questions  that  are  immediately  before  us  ? 


VIII 

AGENCIES   THROUGH   WHICH  WE  SHALL  SECURE 

THE  RETURN   OF  AN  EFFICIENT  PEOPLE'S 

GOVERNMENT  —  AND   THE   RETURN 

OF   THEIR   RIGHTS 

f  OW  can  we,  as  a  people,  get  the  machinery 
of  government  back  into  our  own  hands? 
How  can  we  meet  and  battle  with  and  de- 
^J^^jfyi  feat  the  combination  which  great  moneyed, 
corporate  interests  have  made  with  the  political  ma- 
chine, the  combination  that  has  already  well-nigh  throt- 
tled democratic  or  representative  government  in  the 
nation?  We  have  seen,  by  illustrations  perhaps  almost 
too  prolific,  how  the  people's  will  is  thwarted,  how  their 
desires  are  disregarded,  and  how  they  have  literally  to 
fight  their  chosen  representatives  in  order  to  prevent 
them  from  selling  out  their  interests  completely  to  the 
agencies  already  mentioned. 

We  need  now  a  new  and  more  comprehensive  appli- 
cation of  the  term  traitor,  so.  that  it  shall  include  in  its 
scope  the  one  who,  as  a  chosen  and  su])posed  represen- 
tative of  the  people  and  hence  of  the  country,  for  gold 
or  for  whatever  gain,  conspires  with  the  enemies  of  his 
pco]jle,  and  sells  to  them  his  people's  interests,  as  scores 
of  our  representatives,  nnmicipal,  state,  national,  have 
done  in  one  form  or  another  the  past  twelve  months,  the 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  187 

same  as  for  many  years  that  are  gone.  They  will- con- 
tinue to  do  so  and  in  greater  numbers  and  to  greater 
extent  as  each  year  passes,  unless  we  as  a  people  begin 
in  some  effective  and  common-sense  way  to'  attend  dili- 
gently to  our  own  affairs  in  government.  This  is  not  a 
mere  putting  together  of  words,  nor  a  false  charge,  nor 
an  idle,  thoughtless  statement,  but  a  hard,  cold,  though 
exceedingly  unwelcome,  fact. 

We  must  take  it  out  of  the  power  of  men  to  make 
traitors  in  civil  life,  which  are  far  more  destructive  and 
disastrous  to  the  people's  and  therefore  to  the  nation's 
welfare  than  the  occasional  traitor  that  appears  in  time 
of  war.  I  had  almost  said  this  tendency  must  be 
checked,  but  the  hard,  cold  facts  demand  one  instead  to 
say,  this  condition  that  is  actually  among  us,  sucking 
the  very  life-blood  from  the  body  of  freemen,  must  be 
speedily  checked  and  driven  from  out  the  land,  or  the 
dissolution  of  the  nation  is  to  be  the  inevitable  result, 
in  addition  to  the  humiliation  attendant  upon  this  con- 
dition, and  also  the  great  losses  we  have  already  sus- 
tained and  will  sustain  to  a  continually  increasing 
degree. 

Our  governmental  institutions  to-day,  not  in  theory 
perhaps,  but  as  they  actually  exist,  are  neither  demo- 
cratic nor  representative.  This  no  thoughtful,  clear- 
seeing  man  at  all  acquainted  with  existing  conditions 
will  even  attempt  to  deny,  however  great  may  be  his 
desire  to  do  so.  It  is  not  necessary  here  to  ask.  Why  is 
t]:is  so?  This  we  have  gone  into,  both  directly  and  in- 
directly, to  almost  a  wearying  extent  already.  The 
question  is.  How  shall  we  get  back  in  fact,  and  in  actual 


iS8  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

practice  and  results,  to  what  g-overnment  among-  us  is  in 
theory  —  the  government  and  institutions  upon  which 
we  so  pride  ourselves  ? 

A  serious  shortcoming  in  our  institutions  has  de- 
veloped itself,  a  shortcoming  which  could  scarcely  be 
foreseen  in  the  beginning.  We  must  halt  now  to  make 
the  necessary  changes  and  repairs,  or  the  entire  machin- 
ery will  be  wrecked,  adding  another  huge  junk  pile  to 
the  wrecked  and  worn-out  machinery  of  nations  that 
once  were  great,  but  whose  people  were  unable  or  illy 
inclined  to  see  and  grasp  the  meaning-  of  new  times  and 
conditions,  and  arouse  themselves  sufficiently  to  master 
them  instead  of  suffering  themselves  to  be  brought  to 
a  gradual  ruin  by  them.  A  change  now  is  essential,  a 
repairing  of  the  machinery. 

We  must  take  a  long  step  and  get  back  to,  or  move 
forward  to,  actual  representative  government.  Repre- 
sentative is  here  a  better  word  perhaps  than  democratic. 
The  New  England  town-meeting  still  in  active  opera- 
tion in  hundreds  of  New  England  towns  and  villages, 
and  a  similar  method  in  vogue  in  many  of  our  newer 
western  states,  is  perhaps  the  best  concrete  example  of 
the  latter.  You  who  have  had  part  in  or  who  have  at- 
tended such  a  meeting  or  meetings  know  how  each  year 
the  voters  of  the  town  or  village  meet  at  the  duly  ap- 
pointed time  and  place,  and  initiate,  discuss,  vote  upon 
and  adopt  such  measures,  make  such  appropriations, 
select  such  men  to  carry  out  their  programme  as  they 
decide  are  necessary  or  advisable  for  the  coming  year. 
You  appreciate  most  fully  how  impossible  it  is  with 
such  a  method  to  sell  out  the  interests  of  the  people  of 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  189 

the  village  or  town,  because  the  people  are  there  to  at- 
tend to  their  own  business  and  to  look  after  their  own 
interests.  This  method  works  just  as  effectively  and  as 
safely  now  for  the  interests  of  the  people  as  it  did  a 
hundred  years  ago,  or  when  it  was  first  instituted,  and 
the  reason  is  apparent  on  the  face  of  it.  Those  who  are 
acquainted  with  its  effective  workings  would  like  to 
see  it  extended  to  all  our  villages  and  towns  throughout 
the  country,  the  same  as  it  is  being  adopted  here  and 
there  in  various  parts  of  our  thriving  newer  western 
states.  Because  it  has  such  a  thorough  common-sense 
basis,  it  works  as  well  in  practice  as  in  theory.  It  is 
better  than  representative  government.  It  is  pure  dem- 
ocratic government. 

It  is  the  principle  upon  which  the  institutions  of  a 
great  nation  can  most  safely  be  built.  But  when  it 
comes  to  the  larger  units,  the  large  city,  the  state,  the 
nation,  then  its  application  becomes  more  difficult,  if 
not  entirely  out  of  the  question.  As  nearly  as  we  can 
approach  to  it,  however,  is  the  best  government ;  and 
in  these  larger  units  we  have  in  theory  an  ideal  system, 
in  that  we  select  men  to  represent  its  at  seats  of  govern- 
ment, municipal,  state,  and  national.  We,  however, 
have  not  completed  the  system.  The  result  is  that  our 
theoretical  representative  government  has  become  in 
practice  thoroughly  and  notoriously  —  with  a  proper 
allowance  of  exceptions  of  course  —  misrepresentative. 
In  other  words  our  system  has  developed,  or  has  given 
evidence  of  some  most  serious  shortcomings,  and,  I  ad- 
mit, shortcomings  such  as  could  not  fully  be  foreseen 
in   the  beginning.     What  we  of  this  generation   and 


IQO  Tlic  Land  of  Living  Men 

those  of  the  g-encration  rapidly  coming  upon  the  stage 
of  action  are  called  upon  to  do,  is  to  recognize  the  exi- 
g-encies  of  the  time  and  amend  or  complete  what  to-day 
is  far  from  what  it  must  be  made  to  be. 

Let  the  State  Legislature  be  an  example  of  both 
municipal  and  national  legislative  bodies.  The  chief 
failure  or  weakness  of  any  particular  session  of  any  leg- 
islature is  that  it  fails  to  do  certain  things  that  the  in- 
terests of  the  people  require,  and  it  does  various  other 
things  that  arc  diametrically  opposed  to  the  interests  of 
the  people,  whose  representatives  its  members  are  cho- 
sen nominally  to  be.  Now  the  chief  reason  that  is  at  the 
bottom  of  this  two-fold  failure  has  been  gone  into  so 
fully  in  previous  pages  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  make 
useless  repetition  here.  But  the  point  is,  that  in  connec- 
tion with  the  acts  of  these  nominal  representatives  of 
the  people,  the  people  have  practically  no  recourse,  in 
other  words  they  are  absolutely  at  the  mercy  of  their 
agents.  We  act  in  a  way  that  no  business  man,  even 
for  an  instant,  would  think  of  acting  in  connection 
with  his  agents,  or  in  a  way  that  if  he  did  so  act,  his 
business  would  be  irrevocably  ruined  and  in  many  cases 
in  less  time  than  it  would  take  to  describe  the  process. 

Now,  one  feature  in  connection  with  which  it  is  es- 
sential that  we  immediately  repair  the  machinery  of-  our 
government  is,  that  we  have  the  power,  and  the  quick 
and  ready  power  to  initiate  whatever  measures  a  suffi- 
cient number  of  people  feel  the  public  interests  require. 
Another  feature  is,  that  we  have  the  power  to  veto 
whatever  measures  our  chosen  representatives,  or  sup- 
posed representatives,  may  enact,  that  a  sufficient  num- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  191 

her  of  the  people  feel  are  opposed  to  the  public  welfare. 
These  are  two  principles,  fundamentally  common-sense 
and  essential  in  order  to  perfect  the  running  machinery 
of  our  government. 

In  our  system  of  representative  government  as  it  has 
worked  out  to  the  present  time,  the  people  —  the  source 
of  power  and  in  whose  hands  all  power  should  reside  — 
have  lost,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  the  ability  of 
having  their  desires  or  wishes  put  into  force.  We  dele- 
gate power  to  men  and  hold  them  in  no  way  responsible 
to  us  for  the  use  of  that  power,  and  with  the  tremen- 
dous prices  large  corporations,  many  of  them  fattened 
off  of  the  people's  properties,  are  able  to  and  do  pay, 
we  expect  men,  many  of  them  entirely  irresponsible  be- 
cause chosen  by  these  interests  for  the  direct  further- 
ance of  their  ends,  to  work  for  our  interests  and  for  the 
public  welfare. 

We  do  what  no  business  manager  would  consent 
to  or  even  think  of  doing,  unless  he  were  deliberately 
inviting  the  disruption  or  the  certain  annihilation  of  his 
business ;  and  it  requires  only  the  most  ordinary  course 
of  reasoning,  and  especially  when  reinforced  by  the 
lessons  that  are  in  such  vast  numbers  being  thrust  into 
our  faces,  to  know  that  the  continuance  of  our  repre- 
sentative system  without  a  safeguard  for  retention  of 
power  on  the  part  of  the  principals,  will  mean  continued 
unsatisfactory  and  humiliating  conditions  and  tremen- 
dous losses,  and  the  eventual  dissolution  of  every  sem- 
blance of  desirable  government.  In  other  words,  we 
have  come  to  a  weakness,  a  breakdown  in  our  machin- 
ery of  government,  which  could  not  be  fully  anticipated 


192  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

by  those  who  gave  us  our  splendid  beginnings  of  gov- 
ernment ;  and  which,  let  it  be  said,  if  we  have  but  half 
the  wisdom  they  displayed,  we  will,  without  delay  and 
at  whatever  cost,  be  about  repairing  or  remodelling, 
and  we  will  bring  it  up  to  the  development  and  to  the 
needs  of  the  times. 

Now  in  what  simple  practical  manner  can  we  bring 
these  two  essential  provisions  into  our  respective 
spheres  of  government?  Fortunately  we  do  not  have 
to  theorize  in  regard  to  the  matter  at  all ;  a  system  has 
already  been  initiated  and  has  been  in  effective  use  for 
many  years  already.  From  a  nation  that  of  all  nations 
has  the  most  ideally  representative  government,  because 
the  most  democratic  in  its  essence,  Switzerland,  we 
have  a  system  that  has  been  in  successful  operation  for 
many  years,  hence  thoroughly  tested,  and  that  has 
worked  equally  well  in  other  countries  where  it  has 
been  put  into  operation,  as  also  in  several  common- 
wealths in  our  own  country. 

It  is  through  the  principle  of  Direct  Legislation,  by 
means  of  the  Initiative  and  Referendum,  that  we  can 
get  the  machinery  of  government  back  into  our  own 
hands,  and  establish  a  truly  representative  system  of 
government  among  us. 

"  The  Referendum  started  in  1830  in  the  Canton  of 
St.  Gall,  the  Initiative  in  1845  ""^  the  Canton  of  Vaud. 
Since  those  dates  the  two  institutions  have  marched  in 
a  triumphal  tour  through  the  Swiss  Republic  until  they 
have  been  adopted  in  the  Federal  Constitution.  It  is 
not  too  much  to  say  that  within  these  few  years  Swit- 
zerland has  been  converted  from  a  nest  of  oligarchies. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  193 

entrenched  behind  vested  interests,  into  the  model 
Democratic  Republic." 

The  Initiative  means  the  proposal  of  a  law  or  statute 
by  the  petition  of  a  certain  percentage  of  voters. 

The  Referendum  means  a  vote  by  the  people  on  any 
law  passed  by  the  legislature,  or  on  a  law  proposed  by 
the  Initiative. 

The  two  are  referred  to  many  times,under  the  term 
Direct  Legislation,  or  sometimes  characterized  as 
"  guarded  representative  government." 

As  a  thoughtful  writer  has  said :  "  Direct  Legisla- 
tion is  simply  an  application  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  agency  recognized  in  every  court  of  law  in  the 
civilized  world,  via. :  That  an  agent  must  hold  himself 
at  all  times  subject  to  the  command  and  approval  of  his 
principal.  One  employing  an  agent  to  manage  his  busi- 
ness expects  him  to  do  as  he  is  directed  in  its  conduct. 
If  he  is  not  willing  to  do  this  he  may  be  discharged  by 
the  principal.  The  employer  retains  the  power  of  in- 
stant veto,  not  having  to  wait  until  the  end  of  a  speci- 
fied term,  during  which  his  property  might  be  mort- 
gaged, sold,  or  given  away." 

Here  is  a  simple,  an  effective,  and  a  fully  demon- 
strated weapon  with  which  we  can  strike  the  necessary 
blows.  It  is  a  practicable  and  attainable  method  be- 
cause it  cannot  be  made  an  issue  of  parties  and  politics. 
It  cannot  be  made  a  football  of  political  parties,  because 
it  is  something  in  connection  with  which  all  men  really 
agree.  It  is  a  principle  that  is  almost  axiomatic  in  its 
truth,  and  such  principles  are  not  subject  to  dispute. 
And  moreover,  so  far  as  dominant  parties  at  least  are 


194  The  Land  of  Liz'ing  Men 

concerned,  no  Republican  who  believes  with  Lincoln, 
in  "  a  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for 
the  people,"  will  dispute  its  wisdom  or  oppose  its  adop- 
tion and  use.  And  no  Democrat  who  believes  with 
Jefiferson  that  "  governments  are  Republican  only  in 
proportion  as  they  embody  the  will  of  the  people  and 
execute  it,"  and  "  government  is  more  or  less  republi- 
can in  proportion  as  it  has  in  its  possession  more  or  less 
of  this  ingredient  of  the  direct  action  of  the  citizens." 
And  as  is  evident,  no  new  party  that  has  arisen  or  that 
may  arise  (working  for  the  people's  greater  interests 
than  they  are  able  to  be  persuaded  the  two  dominant 
parties  as  at  present  constituted  are  working  for)  will 
oppose  the  adoption  and  application  of  such  a  principle. 
Moreover,  there  is  no  leader  (no  party)  sufficiently 
foolish,  however  great  his  natural  desire  might  be  to  do 
otherwise,  as  to  array  himself  against  such  an  axiomat- 
ically  sound  principle  of  truly  representative  govern- 
ment as  to  oppose  it,  when  its  advocates  once  get  it 
squarely  before  the  people  as  an  issue  to  be  acted  upon. 

It  seems  to  me  also  that  those  who  have  various  de- 
sires and  plans  for  the  betterment  of  governmental  in- 
stitutions, however  ideal  their  conceptions  and  plans 
may  be,  can  and  will  unite  upon  such  a  common-sense 
and  practical  agency  through  which  effective  strides  can 
be  made  that  will  pave  the  way,  and  that  in  time  will 
lead  to  the  realization  of  such  hopes  and  such  plans. 

From  the  very  nature  of  the  principle  of  direct  or 
guarded  legislation  that  wc  are  considering,  it  would 
almost  seem  that  sjKcific  arguments  in  its  favour  were 
unnecessary.     It  may  not  come  amiss,  however,  to  give 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  195 

briefly  an  enumeration  of  some  of  those  most  evident, 
or  a  sort  of  summary,  of  those  suggested  or  hinted  at 
in  the  foregoing  pages  of  this  chapter. 

First  and  foremost,  as  must  be  evident  to  all  who  have 
more  or  less  of  an  intimate  knowledge  of  conditions  as 
they  actually  exist  among  us  to-day,  is  the  fact  that  as 
a  matter  of  pure  self-preservation  of  our  form  of  gov- 
ernment, and  thereby  our  interests,  this  amending,  this 
completing  of  our  political  system  is  necessary.  It  has 
become  essential  to  the  proper  working  of  representa- 
tive government.  Without  this  power  held  in  reserve 
by  the  people,  we  make  our  chosen  representatives  who 
would  otherwise  be  honourable  men,  intent  and  deter- 
mined upon  the  people's  interests,  the  prey  of  these 
same  nefarious  influences  for  all  time  to  come,  or,  on 
the  other  hand,  we  make  these  supposed  chosen  repre- 
sentatives whose  candidacy  is  managed  by  these  same 
interests  and  who  have  us  elect  these,  their  own  agents, 
for  them,  practically  masters  of  all  our  common  pos- 
sessions, with  a  free  hand  to  betray  our  welfare  into  the 
hands  of  these  interests.  In  other  words.  Direct  Legis- 
lation is  essential  to  representative  government  in  com- 
plex or  large  communities,  essential  to  the  realization  of 
anything  approaching  true  democracy.  "It  is  simply 
a  common-sense  application  of  the  principles  of  agency, 
affording  the  principal  his  proper  rights  of  veto,  con- 
struction, control,  and  discharge.  Direct  Legislation 
means  control  of  your  servants  instead  of  letting  your 
servants  control  you." 

From  this,  then,  follows  naturally  the  fact  that  brib- 
ery and  the  corrupt  and  venal  lobby  will,  to  a  great  ex- 


196  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

tent,  be  done  away  with,  or  they  will  be  so  diluted  that 
the  results  will  be  practically  the  same.  Where  $50,000 
\vould  buy  the  necessary  number  of  councilmen,  or  leg- 
islators to  buy  the  passage  of  a  measure,  the  briber,  the 
agent  of  the  "  interests  "  could  not  with  this  amovmt  or 
any  amount  buy  50,000,  or  5,000,  or  any  large  number 
of  citizen  voters  to  vote  for  or  to  pass  a  measure  against 
their  own  interests.  Such  a  thing  is  scarcely  conceiv- 
able. The  "  interests  "  then  are  not  going  to  pay  their 
good  money  to  men  who  cannot  "  deliver  the  goods," 
and  under  this  system  they  cannot  deliver  the  goods,  be- 
cause they  would  not  have  the  final  say  in  regard  to  the 
matter  at  issue.  Rings  and  bosses  will  lose  their  hold 
and  their  business.  Franchise  grabs  as  well  as  black- 
mailing bills  will  in  time  disappear  because  in  case  of 
the  former  the  people  will  be  able  to  see  to  it  that  their 
properties  are  retained  for  their  own  use  and  welfare, 
and  in  case  of  the  latter  the  people  can  always  be 
appealed  to  with  the  assurance  that  justice  will  be 
compelled.  The  following  paragraphs  from  a  former 
distinguished  Judge  and  a  man  who  knew '  well  the 
methods  of  the  boss,  the  machine,  and  the  "  interests," 
are  most  appropriate  here : 

"  The  fierce  commercialism  of  the  age,  which  has 
tended  to  enthrone  the  dollar  and  enslave  the  man,  has 
lowered  the  standards  and  has  covered  the  land  with 
corruption  until  corrupt  concentrations  of  money, 
wielded  by  unscrupulous  men,  have  acquired  such  a 
complete  control  of  the  governments,  national,  state, 
and  munici])al,  that  the  people  are  almost  helpless. 
Laws  destructive  to  their  interests  are  passed  through 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  197 

bribery,  and  laws  necessary  for  tbeir  protection  are 
kept  off  the  statute  book  by  bribery.  To  meet  this  new 
and  unfortunate  condition  it  is  necessary  that  the  people 
be  given  the  power  in  certain  emergencies  to  legislate 
direct,  either  by  a  popular  vote  to  put  specific  acts 
upon  the  statute  book,  or  to  declare  certain  specific  acts 
already  on  the  statute  book  to  be  null  and  void.  This 
would  destroy  the  business  of  bribery,  because  it  would 
render  the  fruits  of  bribery  worthless.  No  corporation 
would  buy  a  legislature  or  a  city  council  if  the  acts  of 
that  legislature  or  council  could  be  nullified  by  the 
people. 

"  This  system  has  worked  marvellously  well  where 
it  has  been  tried.  ...  It  is  not  a  question  to  speculate 
about.  It  is  not  a  chimerical  idea.  It  is  simply  a  ques- 
tion of  self-preservation." 

And  the  following  from  Governor  Folk  when ,  the 
people  of  Missouri  were  finally  aroused  and  determined 
to  free  themselves  from  most  debasing  and  well-nigh 
intolerable  conditions,  is  more  than  suggestive : 

"  Vote  for  the  Initiative  and  Referendum,  a  system 
that  will  be  the  death  blow  to  corruption  and  the  only 
true  remedy  for  bribery.  Why  elect  me  unless  I  am 
given  the  proper  tools?  " 

While  on  the  one  hand  the  application  of  the  Initia- 
tive and  Referendum  would  have  a  very  telling  effect 
upon  the  party  boss  and  the  machine,  upon  the  star 
chamber,  "  arranging  "  methods  through  which  almost 
every  phase  of  legislation  must  pass,  it  would  also  on 
the  other  hand  call  into  public  life  in  many  cases  a 
higher  grade  of  men;  for  the  higher  the  plane  politics 


198  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

is  upon,  the  better  the  men  that  are  naturally  attracted 
to  it.  This  is  the  general  rule  ;  the  exception  occurs  in 
case  of  the  occasional  brave  and  earnest  man  who  sees 
the  well-nigh  intolerable  conditions  in  political  affairs 
around  him,  and  who  without  thought  of  self  and  with- 
out counting  the  cost,  sets  about  in  an  endeavour  to  end 
them. 

It  will  promote  thought  and  discussion  and  a  greater 
intelligence  on  the  part  of  all  people  in  connection  with 
all  public  measures.  As  it  is,  the  average  citizen,  good 
citizen  if  you  please,  has  no  part  in  the  discussion  nor 
in  the  forming  of  conclusions  in  legislative  matters  ;  he 
has  no  method  except  in  some  cumbersome  and  round- 
about and  generally  ineffective  way  of  making  his  de- 
sires or  his  protests  regarding  matters  of  legislation 
known.  With  this  simple  and  effective  direct  instru- 
ment in  the  hands  of  good  citizens,  their  interest  in 
good  government  and  in  all  measures  of  public  concern 
and  welfare  would  revive,  and  by  reason  of  the  healthy 
stimulation  it  would  receive,  it  would  give  birth  to  a 
new  type  of  patriotism  that  would  redeem  and  carry  our 
institutions  long  strides  towards  what  they  are  yet  to 
be.  And  its  influence  upon  the  youth  of  the  land,  as 
they  in  turn  come  into  the  field  of  action,  it  is  easy  to 
foresee. 

It  would  strengthen  our  respect  for  law,  instead  of 
our  growing  disrespect  for  it,  because  then  its  enact- 
ment would  emanate  "  from  the  mind,  the  conscience, 
the  aliiding  will  of  the  sovereign  people,"  instead  of 
legislators,  "  some  of  whom,"  says  an  editorial  in  the 
New  York  Independent,  "  are  wise  men,  some  of  whom 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  199 

are  good  men,  many  of  whom  are  fools,  and  not  a  few 
of  whom  are  scoundrels." 

It  will  separate  issues  from  men,  thereby  fostering 
intelligent  discussion  and  keeping  real  issues  fairly  be- 
fore the  people.  As  important  a  feature  as  any  in  its 
favour  is  the  fact  that  it  is  the  remedy,  the  reform,  the 
amending,  the  completing  of  our  governmental  institu- 
tions along  the  lines  of  least  resistance,  which  is  a  most 
important  feature  in  connection  with  practical  politics 
and  in  connection  with  political  growth  and  continual 
higher  political  attainment. 

We  have  considered,  though  in  very  brief  form,  the 
reasons  or  arguments  in  favour  of  direct  or  guarded 
legislation.  What  are  the  arguments  against  .it  ?  I 
have  never  seen  more  than  two  that  are  really  worthy 
of  consideration.  One  is,  that  the  people  will  make 
mistakes.    The  other  is,  that  they  will  abuse  this  power. 

As  to  the  former,  we  will  readily  grant  the  truth  of 
the  assertion.  The  people  will  make  occasional  mis- 
takes, and  they  will  be  apt  to  make  more  mistakes  at 
first  than  they  will  later  on  with  more  experience  and 
with  such  increased  intelligence  in  connection  with 
matters  of  public  policy  as  this  educative  process  will 
bring  about.  That  no  system  is  wholly  perfect  will  be 
most  readily  admitted  by  all.  But  the  real,  the  vital 
question  is,  will  the  people  make  as  many  mistakes 
working  directly  for  their  own  interests,  as  the  mis- 
takes made  —  and  that  mistakes  are  sometimes  made 
by  the  people's  representatives  will  be  admitted  and 
freely  perhaps  by  all  —  by  these  representatives,  com- 
bined with  the  frightful  wrongs  and  injustices  that  are 


200  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

frequently  perpetrated  under  our  present  irresponsible 
representative  system,  where  bribery  and  graft  and 
public  debauchery  have  become  so  widespread  and  so 
general  on  account  of  this  weakness  in  our  system,  as 
to  make  us  the  laughing  stock  of  practically  every  other 
civilized  country  in  the  world,  Russia  possibly  excepted. 
The  people  know  their  own  desires  and  aims  and  their 
OAvn  business  better  than  it  can  be  known  by  any  num- 
ber of  representatives,  even  though  they  might  be  uni- 
formly wise  and  honest. 

The  man  who  is  afraid  to  trust  the  people  when  it 
comes  to  attending  to  their  own  affairs,  has  something 
radically  wrong  in  his  mental  make-up,  or  has  some- 
thing under  cover  that  will  not  stand  the  scrutiny  of 
honest  and  honourable  men.     Watch  him. 

We  must,  moreover,  get  over  the  idea  that  matters 
.of  government  are  deep  and  intricate  and  complex 
matters.  When  it  comes  to  attending  to  their  own 
affairs  on  the  part  of  the  people,  there  is  nothing  intri-' 
cate  or  complex,  or  there  is  nothing  as  intricate  and 
complex  as  would  at  first  thought  seem.  But  things 
are  made,  or  are  made  to  seem,  intricate  or  complex,  by 
the  professional  politician,  by  the  paid  agents,  and  at 
times  the  paid  attorneys  of  thieving  or  stock-juggling 
corporations  or  privilege-seeking  or  law-defying  corpo- 
rations, combines  and  agencies  of  the  various  types  that 
are  continually  at  work. 

So  much  then  for  the  argument  that  the  people  will 
make  mistakes. 

As  to  the  other  argument  above  noted,  that  the 
people  will  abuse  this  power,  the  testimony  in  an  over- 


The  Land  of  Liz'ing  Men  2Cl 

whelming  abundance  is,  that  it  is  entirely  unfounded, 
that  it  has  no  basis  in  actually  demonstrated  fact.  This 
argument  that  the  people  will  abuse  this  power  which 
is  not  borne  out  by  the  facts,  but  which  has  on  the 
contrary  been  wholly  disproved  by  such  facts  as  we 
have  up  to  the  present  time,  brings  us  to  the  enuncia- 
tion of  one  of  the  strongest  possible  reasons  for  the 
Initiative  and  Referendum,  namely,  that  the  very  fact 
of  the  people  having  this  power  reserved  in  their  own 
hands  and  without  having  to  have  recourse  to  it  at  all, 
prevents  in  many  cases  questionable  or  baneful  legisla- 
tion, and  on  the  other  hand  compels  legislation  that 
would  not  many  times  be  enacted  were  it  not  that  the 
people  hold  this  compelling  power.  The  holding  of  this 
power  indicates,  and  makes  all  too  plainly  evident  to  the 
people's  representatives  and  to  those  who  would  de- 
bauch and  buy  them,  that  the  people  hold  in  their  own 
hands  the  final  power,  and  their  legislators  cannot  be 
bought  successfully  without  the  buying  of  the  people, 
which  on  the  very  face  of  it  is  impossible. 

Direct  Legislation  amendments  have  already  become 
a  part  of  the  constitutions  of  several  of  our  progressive 
newer  western  states.  Where  the  proposal  of  Direct 
Legislation  has  been  brought  squarely  before  the  people 
to  receive  their  sanction  or  their  veto,  it  has  in  almost 
every  case  been  adopted  by  an  overwhelming  vote.  It 
has  been  made  part  of  the  charter  law  already  in  a  few 
cities,  and  in  every  case  so  far  —  state  and  municipal  — 
it  has  given  good  results';  in  many  cases  results  that 
could  not  possibly  be  accomplished  in  any  other  way,  or 
by  any  other  at  present  known. 


202  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

A  Direct  Legislation  Amendment  went  before  the 
people  of  the  State  of  Oregon  at  the  general  election  of 
1902  and  was  adopted  by  an  overwhelming  majority  — 
a  vote  of  a  little  over  ten  to  one.  The  essence  of  this 
new  provision  may  be  said  to  be  as  follows,  contained  in 
the  opening  sentence  of  Article  IV,  Section  I :  "  The  leg- 
islative authority  of  the  State  shall  be  vested  in  a  Legis- 
lative Assembly,  consisting  of  a  Senate  and  a  House 
of  Representatives,  but  the  people  reserve  to  themselves 
power  to  propose  laws  and  amendments  to  the  constitu- 
tion, and  to  enact  or  reject  the  same  at  the  polls,  inde- 
pendent of  the  Legislative  Assembly,  and  also  reserve 
at  their  option  the  power  to  approve  or  reject  at  the 
polls  any  act  of  the  Legislative  Assembly."  As  to  the 
numbers  required  to  make  effective  this  power  held  in 
reserve  by  the  people,  eight  per  cent  of  the  legal  voters 
of  the  State  have  the  power  to  propose  or  initiate  laws, 
constitutional  amendments,  etc.,  and  five  per  cent  may 
demand  a  referendum  on  any  act  or  acts  passed  by  the 
Legislature  when  their  petitions  are  filed  within  ninety 
days  after  the  adjournment  of  the  Session  during  which 
they  were  enacted.  The  Legislature  itself  may  refer 
any  act  passed  by  it  to  the  people.  The  Governor  can- 
not exercise  the  veto  power  in  connection  with  any 
measure  referred  to  the  people. 

During  even  the  comparatively  short  time  that  the 
people  of  the  State  of  Oregon  have  had  this  amendment 
incorporated  into  their  constitution,  as  has  been  well 
said,  "  it  has  proved  a  field  bf  dragons  teeth  to  the 
Oregon  machine  politician."  Through  the  possession 
of  this  they  have  already  secured  that  now  essential 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  203 

measure  for  political  decency  and  political  progress,  a 
Direct  Primary  Election  Law,  than  which  there  is  noth- 
ing more  effective  to  put  political  bosses  and  machine 
politicians  out  of  business. 

On  May  5  (1910),  Hon.  Jonathan  Bourne,  Jr.,  of 
Oregon,  delivered  in  the  United  States  Senate  a  most 
telling  and  illuminating  exposition  of  the  truly  repre- 
sentative government  that  now  exists  in  that  state,  and 
incidentally  of  the  results  that  through  the  same  agen- 
cies can  obtain  in  every  state.  Coming  from  so  able  an 
authority,  the  following  brief  extracts,  dealing  with  its 
results  only,  will  be  most  opportune  here.  After  stating 
his  thorough  belief  in  a  real  representative  government 
in  distinction  from  the  thoroughly  misrepresentative 
government  that  has  come  about  so  generally  under 
our  present  systems,  he  says : 

"  Since  that  amendment  was  adopted,  the  people  of 
Oregon  have  voted  upon  twenty-three  measures  sub- 
mitted to  them  under  the  initiative,  five  submitted  under 
the  referendum,  and  four  referred  to  the  people  by  the 
legislature.  .  .  .  That  the  people  acted  intelligently  is 
evident  from  the  fact  that  in  no  instance  has  there  been 
general  dissatisfaction  with  the  result  of  the  vote.  The 
measures  submitted  presented  almost  every  phase  of 
legislation,  and  some  of  them  were  bills  of  considerable 
length. 

"  Results  attained  under  direct  legislation  in  Oregon 
compare  so  favourably  with  the  work  of  a  legislative 
assembly  that  an  effort  to  repeal  the  initiative  and  refer- 
endum would  be  overwhelmingly  defeated.  No  effort 
has  ever  been  attempted. 


204  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

"  It  has  been  asserted  that  the  people  will  not  study 
a  large  number  of  measures,  but  will  vote  in  the  affirm- 
ative, regardless  of  the  merits  of  the  measures  sub- 
mitted. Experience  in  Oregon  has  disproved  this,  for 
the  results  show  that  the  people  have  exercised  discrim- 
inating judgment.*  They  have  enacted  laws  and  have 
adopted  constitutional  amendments  in  which  they  be- 
lieve and  have  defeated  those  of  which  they  did  not 
approve.  .  .  . 

"  The  people  are  not  only  intelligent,  but  fair  and 
honest.  When  the  initiative  and  referendum  was  under 
consideration  it  was  freely  predicted  by  enemies  of  pop- 
ular government  that  the  power  would  be  abused  and 
that  capitalists  would  not  invest  their  money  in  a  state 
where  property  would  be  subject  to  attacks  of  popular 
passion  and  temporary  whims.  Experience  has  ex- 
ploded this  argument.  There  has  been  no  hasty  or  ill- 
advised  legislation.  The  people  act  calmly  and  delib- 
erately and  with  that  spirit  of  fairness  which  always 
characterizes  a  body  of  men  who  earn  their  living  and 
acquire  their  property  by  legitimate  means.     Corpora- 

*  "In  addition  to  the  publicity  incident  to  the  circulation  of 
the  petitions,  the  law  provides  that  the  Secretary  of  State 
shall,  at  the  expense  of  the  State,  mail  to  every  registered 
voter  in  the  State  a  printed  pamphlet  containing  a  true  copy 
of  the  title  and  text  of  each  measure  to  be  submitted  to  the 
people,  and  the  proponents  and  opponents  of  the  law  have  the 
right  to  insert  in  said  pamphlet,  at  the  actual  cost  to  them- 
selves of  paper  and  printing  only,  such  arguments  as  they  see 
fit  to  make.  These  pamphlets  must  be  mailed  not  later  than 
fifty-five  days  before  a  general  election  and  twenty  days  before 
a  special  election." 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  _  205 

tions  have  not  been  held  up  and  blackmailed  by  the 
people,  as  they  often  have  been  by  legislators.  "  Pinch 
bills  "  are  unknown.  The  people  of  Oregon  were  never 
before  more  prosperous  and  contented  than  they  are 
to-day,  and  never  before  did  the  State  offer  such  an  in- 
viting field  for  investment  of  capital.  Not  only  are  two 
transcontinental  railroads  building  across  the  State,  but 
several  interurban  electric  lines  are  under  construction, 
and  rights  of  way  for  others  are  in  demand. 

"I  have  mentioned  all  of  these  facts  for  the  purpose 
of  showing  that  the  people  of  my  State,  and,  I  believe, 
the  people  of  every  other  State,  can  be  trusted  to  act 
intelligently  and  honestly  upon  any  question  of  legis- 
lation submitted  for  their  approval  or  disapproval. 

"  The  initiative  and  referendum  is  the  keystone  of 
the  arch  of  popular  government,  for  by  means  of  this 
the  people  may  accomplish  such  other  reforms  as  they 
desire.  The  initiative  develops  the  electorate  because  it 
encourages  study  of  principles  and  policies  of  govern- 
ment, and  affords  the  originator  of  new  ideas  in  gov- 
ernment an  opportunity  to  secure  popular  judgment 
upon  his  measures  if  8  per  cent  of  the  voters  of  his 
state  deem  the  same  worthy  of  submission  to  popular 
vote.  The  referendum  prevents  misuse  of  the  power 
temporarily  centralized  in  the  legislature.  .  .  . 

"  The  next  step  after  the  adoption  of  the  initiative 
and  referendum  was  the  adoption,  in  1904,  by  a  vote  of 
56,205  to  16,354,  of  a  direct  primary  law,  which  is  de- 
signed to  supersede  the  old  and  unsatisfactory  '  conven- 
tion system.'  .  .  . 

"  The  final  step  in  the  establishment  of  popular  gov- 


2o6  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

ernment  in  Oregon  was  the  adoption  of  the  recall 
amendment  to  the  constitution,  which  was  adopted  in 
1908  by  a  vote  of  58,381  to  31,002.* 

"  The  recall,  to  my  mind,  is  rather  an  admonitory  or 
precautionary  measure,  the  existence  of  which  will  pre- 
vent the  necessity  for  its  use.  At  rare  intervals  there 
may  be  occasion  for  exercise  of  the  recall  against  mu- 
nicipal or  county  officers,  but  I  believe  the  fact  of  its 
existence  will  prevent  need  for  its  use  against  the  higher 
officials.  It  is,  however,  an  essential  feature  of  a  com- 
plete system  of  popular  government. 

"  Under  the  machine  and  political-boss  system  the 
confidence  of  sincere  partisans  is  often  betrayed  by 
recreant  leaders  in  political  contests  and  by  public  ser- 
vants who  recognize  the  irresponsible  machine  instead 
of  the  electorate  as  the  source  of  power  to  which  they 
are  responsible.  If  the  enforcement  of  the  Oregon  laws 
will  right  these  wrongs,  then  they  were  conceived  in 
wisdom  and  born  in  justice  to  the  people,  in  justice  to 
the  public  servant,  and  in  justice  to  the  partisan. 

*  "  Under  this  amendment  any  public  officer  may  be  recalled 
by  the^  fding  of  a  petition  signed  by  25  per  cent  of  the  number 
of  electors  who  voted  in  his  district  in  the  preceding  election. 
The  petition  must  set  forth  the  reasons  for  the  recall,  and 
if  the  officer  does  not  resign  within  five  days  after  the  petition 
is  filed  a  special  election  must  be  ordered  to  be  held  within 
twenty  days  to  determine  whether  the  people  will  recall  such 
officer.  On  the  ballot  at  such  election  the  reasons  for  de- 
manding the  recall  of  said  officer  may  be  set  forth  in  not 
more  than  two  hundred  words.  His  justification  of  his  course 
in  office  may  be  set  forth  in  like  number  of  words.  He  retains 
his  office  until  the  results  of  the  special  election  have  been 
officially  declared." 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  207 

"  Plainly  stated,  the  aim  and  purpose  of  the  laws  is 
to  destroy  the  irresponsible  political  machine  and  to  put 
all  elective  offices  in  the  State  in  direct  touch  with  the 
people  as  the  real  source  of  authority ;  in  short,  to  give 
direct  and  full  force  to  the  ballot  of  every  individual 
elector  in  Oregon  and  to  eliminate  dominance  of  corpo- 
rate and  corrupt  influences  in  the  administration  of 
public  affairs.  The  Oregon  laws  mark  the  course  that 
must  be  pursued  before  the  wrongful  use  of  corporate 
power  can  be  dethroned,  the  people  restored  to  power, 
and  lasting  reform  secured.  They  insure  absolute  gov- 
ernment by  the  people." 

Additional  testimony  from  a  citizen  of  the  same  state, 
as  to  the  healthful  influences  at  work  under  this  system 
of  truly  representative  government  is  as  follows :  * 

"  The  way  in  which  this  formidable  list  of  subjects 
was  dealt  with  is  highly  creditable  to  the  Oregon 
electorate.  ...  In  no  case  was  there  indifference ; 
everything  points  to  the  fact  that  the  ordinary  voter 
studied  the  questions  proposed,  made  up  his  mind  be- 
fore going  to  the  polls,  and  voted  independently  on  all 
the  propositions  placed  before  him.  The  measures  have 
provoked  a  vast  deal  of  discussion ;  indeed,  it  may  be 
said  that  for  a  number  of  months  past  the  people  of 
Oregon  have  all  been  more  or  less  actively  engaged  in 
the  business  of  legislation.  The  educational  benefits 
incident  to  the  system  are  bound  to  be  very  important. 
With  a  change  in  the  initiative  law  perfecting  the 
method  of  distributing  copies  of  proposed  rneasures  to 

*  "  Oregon  as  a  Political  Experiment  Station,"  by  Joseph 
Shafer,  The  Review  of  Reviews,  August,  1906. 


2o8  llic  Laud  of  Living  Men 

the  voters,  there  is  no  reason  why  every  farmers'  club, 
labor  union,  and  lyceum  in  the  State  cannot  become  in 
effect  a  miniature  legislative  assembly.  In  this  way  the 
interests  of  all  sections  and  all  classes  of  the  people  are 
bound  to  receive  attention  ;  measures  will  be  proposed 
for  submission  to  the  local  representatives  and  others  to 
go  before  the  people  at  the  general  elections. 

"  But,  with  all  this  political  activity,  there  is  no  evi- 
dence of  dangerously  radical  tendencies.  The  people 
want  to  make  their  government  as  perfect  as  possible, 
but  are  not  disposed  to  hurry  the  process  unduly.  The 
recent  election,  indeed,  revealed  in  a  striking  manner 
their  conservative  disposition. 

"  In  conclusion,  we  remark  among  the  Oregon  people 
a  genuine  joy  at  the  discovery  of  their  political  capa- 
bilities. Representative  government  is  good,  but  there 
is  an  exhilaration  in  direct  participation  in  law-making, 
the  interest  is  sharpened,  the  intelligence  is  quickened, 
moral  susceptibilities  are  aroused.  The  Oregon  people 
are  convinced  that  in  the  double  form  of  government, 
partly  representative  and  partly  direct,  they  have  dis- 
covered the  true  solution  of  the  problem  of  self-govern- 
ment in  our  American  States." 

Among  the  arguments  on  the  part  of  those  naturally 
opposed  to  this  method  of  changing  our  present  misrep- 
resentative  into  a  truly  representative  government  will 
be  that  of  expense  —  expense  to  the  state,  hence  to 
the  tax-payer.  If  this  objection  were  well  founded  it 
would  undoubtedly  still  be  the  source  of  a  great  saving. 
The  objection,  however,  does  not  bear  investigation. 
The  submission   of  the   total  of  thirty-two  measures 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  209 

to  the  people  since  the  system  has  been  in  operation  in 
the  state  of  Oregon  has  cost  the  state  a  total  of  some 
$25,000,  or  an  average  of  less  than  $800  for  each  meas- 
ure. What  the  saving  of  a  single  one  of  these  meas- 
ures might  mean  to  the  people,  and  especially  as  time 
passes,  can  well  be  left  to  the  imagination  of  an  intelli- 
gent reader.  The  same  cry  was  raised  at  first  by  its 
opponents  in  Los  Angeles,  until  through  this  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  people,  the  passage  of  a  single 
measure  there  was  productive  of  a  saving  of  over  a 
million  dollars.  This  objection  is  no  longer  raised  at 
Los  Angeles. 

Another  agency  that  is  going  to  tell  strongly  in  the 
redemption  of  our  present  political  methods  is  indepen- 
dence in  party  action.  The  time  has  about  passed  when 
a  sort  of  blind,  senseless,  fanatical  allegiance  to  party 
is  going  to  dominate  men  as  it  has  in  the  past. 
Thoughtful  men  everywhere  are  beginning  to  realize 
the  stupidity  and  low  moral  plane  of  such  allegiance. 

One  reason  that  the  low  party  machines,  as  well  as 
those  of  the  higher  grade,  have  been  able  to  be  built 
up  with  all  their  damnable  characteristics,  is  that 
good  men  and  thoughtful  men  and  patriotic  men  have 
not  in  sufficient  numbers  rebuked  their  party  managers 
and  defeated  them  in  their  questionable  and  dishonour- 
able doings,  and  have  not  rebuked  the  selection  of  ques- 
tionable or  venal  or  notoriously  unfit  men  by  defeating 
them  at  the  polls,  thereby  pushing  home  a  lesson  to  the 
party  boss  or  party  managers  that  would  be  of  telling 
efifect,  that  would  be  of  real  service  to  the  party.  And 
when  a  sufficiently  large  numbei'  of  men  make  it  clearly 


210  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

understood  that  they  will  give  unqualified  support  to 
that  party  which  in  every  case  puts  up  the  best  man 
for  public  office,  and  which  stands  honestly  and 
squarely  for  measures  of  the  best  public  policy,  then 
we  will  see  a  great  difference  in  the  standards  of  men 
nominated  for  public  office,  and  in  the  methods  of  polit- 
ical party  management. 

"  In  our  country  we  fool  the  people  with  some  pre- 
tended differences  between  one  party  called  the  Re- 
publican and  another  called  the  Democratic."  So  says 
an  American  writer  in  dealing  with  the  agencies  that 
have  made  the  governments  of  Australia  and  New 
Zealand  so  truly  representative  of  the  people's  welfare. 

This  cry  to  loyalty  to  party  is  generally  an  emanation 
from  some  old  hack  of  a  party  boss  many  times  disso- 
lute and  dishonest  and  criminal,  both  at  heart  and  in 
practice  —  an  emanation,  directly  from  him,  or  through 
some  of  his  equally  dissolute  lieutenants,  to  hoodwink 
and  to  hold  the  members  to  the  party  under  his  or  their 
joint  domination,  in  order  that  at  the  right  time  they 
may  deliver  the  goods  —  the  people's  interests  —  to 
those  with  whom  they  are  in  league.  That  the  people 
have  not  seen  through  this  method  and  have  not  rec- 
ognized this  fact  in  much  larger  numbers  long  before 
this,  is  a  most  astounding  fact.  But  eyes  are  now  open, 
and  minds  are  now  alert  and  discriminating,  and  the 
death  knell  of  these  parasites  upon  the  body  politic,  of 
these  scorpions  in  their  deadly  sting,  and  the  methods 
of  the  moneyed  interests  in  their  dealings  with  them, 
are  being  understood  more  clearly  every  day  and  every 
month. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  211 

Says  a  writer  in  The  Springfield  Republican:  "  In- 
dependent voters,  after  all,  are  every  year  more  numer- 
ous in  this  country.  In  Massachusetts  and  Rhode 
Island  there  were  some  50,000  men  who,  after  voting 
for  a  Republican  candidate  for  president,  were  capable 
of  voting-  for  a  Democratic  candidate  for  governor.  In 
Minnesota  there  were  at  least  50,000  more  of  the  same 
sort,  and  they  did  business  on  election  day.  It  is  dis- 
crimination of  this  sort  that  will  make  the  republic  live 
forever,  if  anything  will." 

Let  us  see  how  it  sometimes  works  as  it  now  exists. 
An  election  is  approaching  and  nominations  for  certain 
offices  are  to  be  made.  The  directing  officers  or  the 
agents  of  certain  leading  public  service  corporations, 
etc.,  want  always  to  be  on  the  safe  side  and  want  to  be 
sure  that  "  safe,  sane,  and  conservative "  men  are 
nominated.  At  the  appointed  time  and  place  a  con- 
ference is  held  between  them  and  the  party  boss  or  the 
party  managers,  —  the  party  that  is  dominant  or  that 
seems  the  more  likely  to  carry  the  particular  election. 
Then,  if  there  is  doubt  in  regard  to  this,  the  party  boss 
or  the  party  managers  of  both  parties  are  "  seen,"  and 
arranged  with.  The  "  interests  "  care  no  more  whether 
the  men  to  be  elected  are  members  of  one  party  or 
members  of  another  party  than  they  care  whether  they 
belong  to  one  or  another  religious  denomination. 

If  the  business  interests  that  are  liable  to  be  affected 
have  nothing  of  special  importance  before  them  just 
then,  they  in  turn  are  "  seen  "  by  the  party  boss  or  party 
managers  to  ascertain  if  the  candidates  about  to  be 
selected  are  agreeable*  to  them,  in  order  that  the  party 


212  The  Land  of  Liziiig  Men 

have  their  support,  etc.,  etc.,  and  the  ticket  is  made  ac- 
cordingly. If  it  is  a  locaUty  where  this  kind  of  machine 
poHtics  has  been  in  operation  for  some  time  and  where 
the  party  managers  are  of  the  ordinarily  low  type  and 
have  a  sufficiently  certain  hold  on  affairs,  then  men  of 
like  character  are  the  natural  nominees,  those  whose 
subserviency  is  a  matter  not  open  to  question.  If  con- 
ditions are  different,  then  a  very  respectable  sort  of 
man,  but  always  "  safe,  sane,  and  conservative,"  such 
as  we  find  for  some  reason  watching  out  most  carefully 
for  the  "  interest's  "  business  for  them,  is  the  natural 
type  of  candidate.  But  whichever  the  type  selected  ac- 
cording to  the  exigencies  of  the  case,  as  the  campaign 
advances  the  "  loyalty  to  party  "  cry  is  continually  to 
be  heard  through  the  various  agencies  and  methods  em- 
ployed and  with  which  we  are  now  so  familiar.  Then 
on  election  day  we  march  up  to  the  polls  to  be  plucked 
by  this  machine  management  that  will  sell  us  and  our 
interests  out  at  the  first  opportunity,  or  by  this  con- 
temptible combination  of  machine  politics  with  the  "  in- 
terests." I  do  not  say  this  is  true  in  every  case.  In 
many  of  our  smaller  towns  and  villages  there  may  be 
simply  traces  of  this,  in  some  cases  none  at  all.  But 
wherever  it  is  of  sufficient  importance  you  may  be  sure 
that  matters  are  "  taken  care  of."  Moreover,  there  is 
not  a  city  of  any  considerable  size  in  the  country,  and 
there  is  not  a  state  where  this  has  not  been,  or  is  not 
now  going  on.  This  is  the  combination  that  has 
brought  the  corru])tion  and  bribery  and  debauchery  into 
politics  that  is  now  undermining  our  very  institutions 
of  government, 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  213 

And  what  are  we  going  to  do  about  it  ?  I  '11  tell  you 
what  we  are  going  to  do  about  it. 

We  are  going  to  change  our  method  of  nominations, 
and  change  it  in  such  a  way,  that  the  boss,  the  machine, 
in  their  combination  with  the  "  interests  "  are  going  to 
have  their  feet  knocked  from  under  them.  A  system  of 
direct  nominations  by  the  people  whereby  they  can  bal- 
lot for  their  own  candidates  after  much  the  same  plan 
as  they  now  ballot  at  regular  elections,  will  soon  enable 
us  to  select  our  own  candidates  for  public  office,  thus 
making  it  harder  for  the  combinations  to  be  made 
whereby  we  are  continually  being  sold  out,  sometimes 
so  openly  and  so  brazenly,  or  in  cases  where  it  is  not 
this,  then  making  it  harder  for  combines  and  trusts  and 
public  service  corporations  to  secure  such  favoring  leg- 
islation as  enables  them  to  become  monopolies,  stifling 
all  honest  competition,  ruining  thousands  of  businesses, 
moving  up  and  keeping  up  prices  of  necessities  to  suit 
their  own  advantage,  and  always  in  advance  of  what- 
ever advance  comes  in  wages  to  the  wage-earner,  the 
professional  man,  and  to  all  outside  the  combination. 

The  caucus  and  the  nominating  convention  as  it  lias 
become  to-day  is  the  starting  point  of  all  that  is  corrupt 
and  venal  and  vile  in  our  American  politics. 

It  is  the  stronghold  of  the  boss,  and  with  this  in  his 
possession  he  controls  elections  and  legislation,  spreads 
corruption  as  suits  his  ends,  and  makes  merchandise  of 
government.  Through  it  he  has  well-nigh  destroyed 
popular  rule,  and  through  him  the  people  have  at  each 
election,  with  an  occasional  exception  here  and  there, 
been  given  merely  the  choice  of  two  evils.     It  is  only 


214  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

through  the  destruction  of  the  present  system  that  the 
power  of  the  boss  and  his  machine  can  be  destroyed,  for 
it  is  through  it  that  he  thrives  and  carries  on  his  im- 
pudent business.  Several  states  have  already  enacted 
more  or  less  efifective  primary  election  laws,  not  perfect 
in  all  cases,  but  being  amended  and  made  better  as  each 
opportunity  for  betterment  manifests  itself. 

With  such  a  system  it  is  evident  that  no  party  boss 
could  dictate  nominations,  and  without  this  power  he 
could  control  neither  patronage  nor  subsequent  legisla- 
tive action,  for  he  is  able  to  dictate  these  solely  through 
the  dependence  of  candidates  upon  him.  Newly  elected 
ofBcers  could  then  look  to  the  people  for  their  instruc- 
tions and  not  be  compelled  to  receive  their  directions 
from  the  party  boss  and  his  machine. 

And  so  far  as  the  voters  are  concerned,  "  each  voter 
would  have  set  up  before  him  in  every  primary  elec- 
tion, and  later  at  the  general  election,  definite,  intelli- 
gent statements  as  to  the  policies  which  would  be 
carried  out  in  this  or  that  office  by  the  candidates  who 
sought  his  suffrage.  National,  state,  and  local  issues 
would  not  be  mixed  together.  If  such  a  system  were 
in  force  no  people  would  have  to  submit  to  the  shame 
of  accepting  the  marionette  of  one  boss  or  another. 
No  machine  could  fatten  on  officially  protected  vice, 
or  on  the  sale  of  legislation.  The  government  would 
be  as  good  as  the  people,  no  better,  no  worse." 

Here  then  is  a  simple,  a  practical,  and  an  effective 
way  whereby  we  can  battle  with,  undermine  and  wrest 
the  control  of  government  from  this  combination  that 
has  been  steadily  and  systematically  perverting  all  our 
forms  of  government  for  years. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men-  215 

Direct  Nominations  by  the  people,  and  direct  legisla- 
tion by  the  people  through  the  Initiative  and  Referen- 
dum, will  give  us  back  our  government. 

They  are  not  ends,  merely  means  to  ends.  But  they 
are  the  weapons,  the  strategic  weapons,  so  to  speak, 
that  must  be  gained  in  order  to  fight  successfully  the 
great  battles  that  are  now  on,  for  almost  before  we  have 
realized  it  the  revolution  has  already  begun. 

As  it  is,  fighting  with  these  forces  of  mammon  and 
corruption,  or  this  combination  between  the  two,  it  is 
like  an  army,  a  large  army,  if  you  please,  moving  out 
with  wooden  swords  and  wooden  guns  against  oppos- 
ing forces,  much  smaller  it  is  true  and  but  a  small  frac- 
tion in  numerical  strength  when  compared  to  the 
greater  army,  but  intrenched  behind  fortresses  of  great 
strength  and  of  systematic  building,  and  every  indi- 
vidual armed  with  the  most  up-to-date  patterns  of  ma- 
chine guns,  with  which  the  entire  larger  army  can  be 
mowed  down  before  it  can  get  even  to  their  intrench- 
ments.  We  must  have  these  weapons  or  lose  in  the 
great  fight.  How  shall  w^e  secure  them  ?  for  they  con- 
stitute the  key  to  the  whole  situation.  Clearly  they  will 
not  come  to  us  through  the  initiative  action  of  any 
political  party  as  such,  that  is,  until  forced  by  the  people. 
We  will  secure  these  measures,  these  weapons,  through 
the  action  of  groups  of  determined  men  throughout 
all  our  states,  who  will  band  themselves  together  in 
Leagues,  known  as  Direct  Nomination,  Direct  Legisla- 
tion, People's  Power  Leagues,  Public  Welfare  Leagues, 
or  whatever  name  or  names  they  may  see  fit  to  work 
under.     They  will  formulate  the  issues,  with  no  small 


2i6  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

expense  both  as  to  time  and  as  to  means,  they  will  carry 
on  an  eckicational  campaign,  and  later,  reinforced  by 
the  support  of  the  people,  they  will  take  their  bills  to 
the  various  legislatures.  They  will  compel  whatever 
members  may  choose  or  whatever  members  may  dare  to 
oppose  them  to  show  their  colours,  that  the  people  may 
know  who  their  enemies,  their  betrayers,  are. 

If  then  a  sufficient  number  of  members  is  bought  oft" 
by  the  combination  in  the  first  meeting  of  the  legis- 
lature before  which  their  bills  are  brought,  they  will 
profit  by  the  knowledge  of  the  methods  employed  to 
defeat  them,  they  will  go  back  to  their  campaigns  and 
to  the  people  with  a  renewed  energy  until  the  voice  of 
the  people  will  speak  with  such  certain  tones  that  even 
the  lowest  of  the  combination  tools  will  not  dare  do  any- 
thing but  listen.  Thus  reinforced  they  will  go  back  to 
the  next  meeting  of  the  legislature  into  which  they 
have  in  the  meantime  put  men  who  will  fight  from 
within,  and  after  another  hard  fight,  or  possibly  even 
another  in  some  cases,  these  weapons  will  be  secured 
and  put  into  the  hands  of  the  people. 

We  can  spend  years  in  desultory  warfare  with  in- 
effective or  inadequate  weapons.  With  these  weapons 
we  can  make  an  effective,  a  telling,  and  a  conquering 
fight,  taking  one  after  another  the  citadels  of  the  in- 
trenched interests  opposed  to  the  public  and  the  people's 
welfare,  the  citadels  of  monopoly  and  of  corporation 
greed,  all  of  them  resulting  from  the  combination  of 
the  "  interests  "  with  the  political  boss  and  the  political 
machine.  With  these  weapons  we  will  be  moving  and 
continually  moving,  not  merely  marking  time.     With 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  217 

power  in  our  own  hands  through  the  possession  of  these 
weapons,  instead  of  a  much  talked  of  and  boasted 
power  that  has  become  merely  an  empty  shell,  while 
the  real  power  is  in  the  hands  of  the  almost  insignifi- 
cantly small  numbers  who  are  using  it  for  their  own 
purposes,  we  will  stand  as  a  body  of  freemen  holding 
the  franchise  in  their  own  hands,  should  stand. 

Now  here  is  a  programme,  simple  and  effective  it 
seems  to  me,  that  we  can  begin  at  once  to  put  into  oper- 
ation to  bring  to  an  end  this  intolerable  situation  that 
has  gradually  come  about  among  us.  If  anyone  has  a 
better,  simpler,  more  effective  programme,  I  am  willing 
to  yield  at  every  point  where  its  really  superior  features 
can  be  established.  I  do  not  mean  for  some  ideal  state 
in  the  by  and  by,  but  I  mean  as  a  force  to  set  into 
operation  in  a  practical  and  telling  way  noiv,  that  we 
may  be  up  and  doing  those  things  that  will  lead  to  the 
ideal  state  that  will  be  established  by  our  doing  now, 
to-day,  what  there  is  to  do,  and  to-morrow  the  same, 
and  to-morrow.  I  am  an  "  opportunist  "  in  that  I  be- 
lieve that  the  way  to  attain  is  to  take  hold  with  the 
clearest  insight  we  can  command,  of  the  thing  that 
needs  to  be  done  and  that  can  be  done  to-day,  letting 
that  lead  to  the  next  thing  that  will  in  turn  develop  itself 
from  it,  and  this  into  the  next,  until  in  time  the  foreseen 
goal  is  reached.  To  see  an  ideal  state,  and  to  sit  and  do 
nothing  until  that  ideal  state  is  developed  and  we  are 
in  it,  or  because  it  cannot  be  attained  all  at  once,  is 
entirely  contrary  to  all  natural  law  of  which  we,  so  far, 
at  least,  have  any  tangible  knowledge. 

With  these  agencies  of  political  power  in  our  hands 


2i8  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

we  will  then  be  in  a  position  to  move  along  the  lines 
of  political  and  economic  advancement  untrammelled. 
\\q  can  then  take  each  step  and  secure  each  change  for 
political  and  economic  betterment  just  as  quickly  as  we 
see  such  step  or  such  change  to  be  desirable. 

We  could  then  institute,  as  several  of  our  progressive 
states  in  keeping  with  some  of  the  more  progressive 
European  countries  are  instituting,  or  have  instituted 
—  the  Recall.  By  means  of  it  when  a  public  official 
shows  himself  too  subservient  to  the  will  or  to  the  in- 
terests of  public-service  corporations,  trusts,  combines, 
etc.,  or  shows  too  fully  a  disregard  of  the  expressed  will 
of  the  people,  or  violates  too  fully  his  ante-election 
pledges,  he  can,  upon  petition  of  a  stipulated  number 
of  voters,  providing  it  is  sustained  by  a  majority  of 
voters  when  referred  in  a  regular  manner  to  them,  be 
recalled  and  retired  and  a  true  representative  of  the 
people's  interests  be  elected  in  his  place.  This  is  a 
principle  long  recognized  and  long  established  in  the 
business  world.  No  business  man  would  against  his 
will  continue  in  his  employ  an  agent  incompetent,  or  a 
thieving,  dishonest  agent.  We  are  certainly  capable  of 
exhibiting  as  much  ordinary  common-sense  in  matters 
of  government  where  such  tremendous  interests  are  at 
stake,  as  we  are  in  matters  of  ordinary  business. 

It  would  end  the  public  careers  of  men,  quite  a  little 
list  in  our  New  York  state  legislature,  for  example, 
who  have  been  there,  some  for  years,  in  the  direct 
service  and  in  the  direct  pay  of  corporations  that  arc 
filching  the  people  of  the  state  for  their  own  gain,  and 
whose  methods,  whose  influence,   and  whose  subser- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  219 

viency  to  these  interests  are  more  detrimental  and  more 
destructive  to  the  people's  interest  and  the  interests  of 
the  state,  than  the  acts  of  thousands  whom  we  call 
criminals  in  our  state  penitentiaries  to-day.  If  this 
volume  were  given  to  personalities,  this  list  in  the  New 
York  legislature  could  be  given.  Those  in  the  legis- 
latures in  other  states  as  well  as  in  the  councils  of 
various  large  cities,  will  come  to  the  minds  of  those  at 
all  conversant  with  these  matters. 

Then  the  election  of  United  States  Senators  by  the 
direct  vote  of  the  people,  such  as  practically  all  are  now 
convinced  is  not  only  desirable  but  necessary,  can  be 
brought  about  in  a  comparatively  short  time,  and  tJiis 
stronghold  of  monopoly  in  our  national  government 
can  be  taken.  With  it  can  be  retired  some  of  the  vari- 
ous members  that  will  readily  come  to  the  mind  of 
every  reader  at  all  conversant  with  public  afifairs,  that 
are  very  carefully  watching  and  upholding  even  with 
a  grim  defiance  of  the  public  the  interests  of  the 
"  interests." 

The  possession  of  these  agencies  would  enable  us 
to  bring  about  more  easily  and  more  quickly  a  change 
that  the  movement  now  world-wide  along  the  lines  of  a 
truer  democracy,  along  the  lines  of  an  increasing  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  sovereign  people,  is  demanding, 
namely,  that  all  federal  judges  and  all  important  offi- 
cers now  receiving  their  positions  by  appointment,  be 
made  elective  at  the  hands  of  the  people.  It  is  quite  as 
necessary  that  laws  and  statutes  be  construed  by  repre- 
sentatives of  the  popular  will  of  the  people,  as  that  the 
laws  and  statutes  be  enacted  in  the  beginning  by  this 


220  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

same  agencv.  Here  is  a  change  in  a  feature  of  our 
government  that  we  will  do  wisely  now  in  giving  atten- 
tion to. 

The  possession  of  these  weapons  would  enable  us  to 
bring  about  effective  inheritance  tax  laws,  or  an  effec- 
tive act  limiting,  for  the  greater  public  good,  the  accu- 
mulations, with  constant  additions  thereto,  the  vast 
private  fortunes  that  will  become  in  time  as  menacing 
and  as  poisoning  to  the  greater  public  welfare,  as  they 
have  proved  to  be  in  all  times  past.  That  we  must  be 
about  this  matter  in  some  statesmanlike  and  eminently 
fair  manner  is  now  clearly  evident  to  large  portions,  and 
perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to  say,  to  the  majority 
of  thinking  men  who  are  more  interested  in  the  public 
welfare  than  they  are  in  their  own  selfish  personal 
gain. 

A  wise  measure  along  these  lines,  moreover,  cannot 
illy  affect  even  the  possessors  of  these  vast  accumula- 
tions, for  excessive  zvcalth  is  of  no  advantage,  or  rather 
of  no  real  benefit,  to  any  man  nor  to  his  descendants. 

If  we  cannot,  in  all  cases,  get  at  a  just  basis  in  the 
distribution  of  the  products  of  labor,  or  in  the  gains 
from  those  properties  whose  great  increase  in  values  is 
caused  by  the  life  and  the  toil  of  all  the  people,  then  we 
will  have  to  get  at  the  matter  also  from  the  other  end. 
Not  the  interests  of  a  few  individuals,  able  and  shrewd 
I  admit,  but  the  welfare  of  all  the  people,  must  be  the 
motto  of  a  really  great  and  continually  progressive  na- 
tion. That  we  will  be  able  to  find  a  fair  and  a  just 
basis  upon  which  we  shall  build  such  action,  I  am 
confident. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  221 

It  is  perhaps  not  unwise  to  say  that  we  must  get  the 
agencies  of  government  so  into  our  own  hands  by  these 
direct  methods  that  we  can  put  an  effective  end  to  the 
gambhng  and  predatory  methods  of  Wall  Street,  not  to 
any  methods  that  are  honourable  and  legitimate  and 
commendable,  but  to  those  that  are  hellish  in  their 
nature  and  whereby  tribute  is  levied  upon  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  in  the  nation  in  order  that  a  few 
buccaneers  may  add  still  more  to  their  already  enormous 
and  illegitimate  gains.  Their  methods  enable  them  to 
reach  out  into  every  state  and  every  city  and  every 
hamlet  in  the  nation  to  gather  in  their  tribute  and  their 
toll. 

Many  of  our  clearest  thinking  men  are  realizing  that 
the  time  has  come  that  a  Federal  Bureau  of  Corpora- 
tions be  established,  so  that  all  companies,  corporations, 
trusts,  etc.,  doing  in  any  way  an  interstate  business  get 
their  charters  and  articles  of  incorporation  from  the 
federal  government,  and  be  strictly  subject  to  its  scru- 
tiny and  regulations.  On  the  basis  of  certain  fair  but 
adequate  requirements,  those  companies  and  corpora- 
tions designing  to  do  a  business  unfair,  unlawful,  and 
illegitimate,  could  be  weeded  out.  The  present  stock- 
watering  methods  now  used  so  freely,  and  so  openly 
employed  by  practically  all  large  companies  and  corpo- 
rations, and  all  methods  designed  to  give  inflated  or 
fictitious  values  to  their  stocks,  could  then  be  suppressed 
and  could  be  dealt  with  in  a  systematic  and  satisfactory 
manner. 

The  possession  of  these  weapons  will  enable  us  as  an 
intelligent  and  a  determined  people,  to  bring  about  such 


222  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

regulations  or  limitations  in  the  methods  and  aggres- 
sions of  our  great  modern  trusts  and  combines  as  be- 
come monopolistic  in  their  methods  or  oppressive  and 
therefore  destructive  to  the  individual  citizen's  welfare. 
We  could  then  counterbalance  in  an  effective  way  the 
skilful  work  of  the  representatives  of  these  agencies 
that  have  become  intrenched  in  our  various  halls  of 
legislation.  We  could  counterbalance  the  efforts  of 
these  representatives  of  the  "  interests,"  as  they  ob- 
struct and  fight  from  within  every  measure  that  is  de- 
signed to  protect  the  people  and  the  public  from  the 
aggressions  of  such  of  these  as  are  dishonourable  and 
law  defying  or  law  breaking  in  their  practices,  as  well 
as  blighting  and  corrupting  in  their  influences.  We 
could  also  in  time,  and  quickly  in  some  cases,  cause  a 
complete  political  extinction  to  become  the  lot  of  the 
representatives  of  these  interests. 

I  would  not  be  understood  as  opposed  to  any  of  those 
interests  that  are  honourable  and  above  board  in  their 
methods ;  or  opposed  to  the  advancement  of  those  in- 
terests that  are  not  opposed  to  the  greater  public  in- 
terests. Large  corporations  and  large  combinations  of 
capital  can  accomplish  results  that  are  of  great  public 
benefit.  Those  that  are  honourable  in  their  methods 
should  in  no  way  be  hampered.  I  do  not  believe  on 
the  other  hand  that  they  should  l)e  unduly  favoured,  for 
they  are  abundantly  able  to  take  care  of  themselves. 
When,  however,  they  secure  their  favours  and  their  ad- 
vantages at  the  terrific  price  that  in  the  end  must  be 
paid  by  the  individual  citizen  and  the  public  welfare, 
then  I  say  we  cannot,  without  intelligent  and  effective 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  223 

protest,  sit  by  and  complacently  permit  these  blighting 
agencies  longer  to  ply  their  trade. 

That  a  corporation  is  large  and  successful  is  no  sign 
that  it  is  dishonourable  or  criminal  in  its  methods. 
Very  many,  however,  are.  Those  that  are  honourable 
in  their  methods  should  be  given  every  respect  and 
every  aid  up  to  the  point  that  this  respect  and  this  aid  is 
not  detrimental  to  the  interests  of  others  and  to  the  pub- 
lic welfare.  From  those  that  are  not  we  should  not  only 
withhold  respect  and  aids  of  every  kind,  but  we  should 
find  an  orderly  and  effective  method  not  only  of  check- 
ing their  aggressions,  but  if  they  persist  in  such  methods 
then  of  putting  them  out  of  business  completely.  Are 
we  as  a  people  intelligent  and  determined  enough  to  do 
this  ?  Other  people  are.  I  believe  we  are  also.  When 
the  people  are  sufficiently  united  and  determined,  these 
matters  are  not  so  complex  and  difficult  of  attainment, 
as  they  in  the  ordinary  course  of  events  and  under  a 
half-hearted  method  of  procedure,  appear.  But  before 
a  people  of  the  right  temper,  these  forces  of  corrup- 
tion and  privilege  will  listen  and  will  seek  cover,  and 
when  they  are  once  on  the  run  they  are  among  the 
greatest  of  cowards.  Ordinarily  they  will  not  stand 
in  a  square  and  open  fight,  but  when  routed  they  are 
liable  to  pop  up  again  in  the  most  unexpected  ways. 
They  must  be  continually  watched. 

I  think  the  author  of  the  following  paragraph,  in 
The  Outlook,  reads  aright  the  signs  and  the  temper  of 
tlie  times : 

"  The  people  do  not  resent  wealth,  but  they  do  resent 
predatory    wealth.      They    would    not    despoil    their 


224  '^^'^  Loud  of  Living  Men 

neighbour  of  any  property  honestly  acquired ;  but  they 
would  despoil  him  of  the  power  to  monopolize  any  of 
the  avenues  of  trade  or  to  control  any  of  the  functions 
of  o;overnment.  To  compel  plutocracy  to  act  decently 
is  not  enough  ;  they  wish  to  destroy  plutocracy  and  re- 
establish democracy  —  perhaps  I  should  say  to  estab- 
lish, for  the  first  time  in  the  world's  history,  a  democ- 
racy of  industry.  And  they  are  quietly  but  none  the 
less  eagerly  asking,  What  next?  .  .  .  Not  the  regula- 
tion but  the  overthrow  of  monopoly  is  the  popular 
demand." 

It  should  be  the  purpose  of  a  wise  and  liberty-loving 
people  to  afford  every  encouragement  and  protection 
to  each  and  every  honest  and  legitimate  business,  be  it 
large  or  be  it  small.  In  this  there  should  be  no  dis- 
crimination. But  when  through  bribery  and  the  de- 
bauchery of  public  servants,  and  when  through  the 
securing  of  unwarranted  favours  they  are  detrimental 
to  practically  every  other  interest,  or  when  by  technical 
evasions  or  delays  in  the  process  of  existing  laws  under 
the  guidance  of  skilled  legal  talent,  or  when  through 
contemptuous  disregard  or  open  and  apparently  fear- 
less violations  of  existing  laws,  or  when  by  virtue  of 
the  confiscation  of  vast  amounts  of  the  people's  prop- 
erty, companies,  corporations,  vested  interests,  trusts, 
and  monopolies  become  so  great,  so  contemptuous  of 
the  people's  rights,  of  the  state,  and  of  the  entire  public 
welfare,  then  it  is  the  plain  duty  of  a  worthy,  fair- 
minded  and  liberty-loving  people  who  have  or  who  can 
have  the  full  agencies  of  government  in  their  own 
hands,  to  come  forward  and  as  one  man  to  cry  out,  — 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  225 

thou  thief,  thou  briber  and  debaucher,  thou  criminal 
black  in  your  law-defying  and  law-breaking  methods, 
thou  despoiler  of  other  men's  goods,  thou  robber  of 
even  widows  and  dependent  children,  thou  traitor  to 
the  public  welfare,  so  far  and  no  farther. 

Let  every  vested  interest  be  protected,  but  let  every 
smaller  interest  be  protected  also  in  like  manner.  Let 
no  favouritism  be  shown  whereby  one  class  of  interests 
is  able  to  cripple,  crush,  and  kill  any  other  interest. 

There  is  no  danger  of  the  American  people,  unless 
trifled  with  too  long  and  unless  goaded  to  the  last 
ditches  of  desperation,  manifesting  any  undue  hostility 
to  any  vested  interests,  and  certainly  none  to  any  that 
are  honourable  and  straightforward  in  their  methods ; 
and  is  there  a  man  living  who  would  think  or  who 
would  be  bold  enough  to  proclaim  that  hostility  should 
not  be  shown  to  all  that  are  not?  It  is  only  an  igno- 
rant, or  a  weakly  or  foolishly  self-complacent,  or  an 
already  conquered  people,  though  perchance  ignorant 
of  the  fact,  that  will  not  arouse  itself  to  a  sufficient 
hostility  to  put  an  end  to  an  economic  slavery  of  such 
type,  and  that  unless  ended  will  have  as  its  final  end  a 
complete  economic  and  political  slavery. 

We  have  this  interesting  and  farcical  condition  that 
has  come  about  among  us,  interesting  were  it  not  so 
notoriously  bold  and  brazen  and  so  degrading  and  de- 
structive in  its  results  —  A  body  of  rich  men  individu- 
ally and  collectively  conspire  for  their  own  greater  and 
quicker  enrichment,  deliberately  to  violate  some  fully 
established  law.  Many  times  then  through  certain 
other  influences  they  set  into  operation  they  are  not 


226  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

even  molested,  or  if  so  they  many  times  go  scot  free. 
If,  however,  they  are  tried  and  convicted  they  are  let 
off  with  a  paltry  fine  —  $5,000  or  $10,000,  or  in  rare 
cases  $25,000. 

An  employee  of  one  of  these  corporations  has  filched 
from  his  employers  a  few  hundred  or  a  few  thousand 
dollars,  or  another  has  filched  from  the  city,  or  state. 
He  is  promptly  arrested,  speedily  tried  and  sentenced 
to  the  penitentiary  for  a  term  ranging  say  from  two  to 
twenty  years.  Now  why  not  fine  him  a  certain  small 
percentage  of  what  he  has  filched  ?  Is  it  five  thousand  ? 
Make  him  pay  over  five  hundred  of  it  and  call  the  mat- 
ter ended.  In  other  words,  what  effect,  or  rather  what 
deterrent  effect,  has  a  fine  of  five  thousand  or  twenty- 
five  thousand  or  a  million  dollars  where  millions  are 
gained  on  the  part  of  the  managers  and  proprietors  of 
certain  trusts  and  corporations,  through  their  criminal 
violations  of  established  law?  If  it  is  right  that  the 
small  filcher  whom  we  call  criminal  be  sent  to  state's 
prison,  then  there  is  the  same  right  and  all  the  greater 
reason  that  these  criminals  who  filch  under  the  most 
cold-blooded  and  deliberate  methods  their  millions,  who 
bam])cr  or  destroy  thousands  of  businesses,  who  under- 
mine the  very  foundations  of  law,  of  order,  of  free  in- 
stitutions, then  I  say  there  is  the  same  right  and  all  the 
greater  reason  that  these  be  sent  to  state's  prison,  or 
that  they  be  fined  so  heavily  that  it  results  in  a  virtual 
confiscation  of  their  entire  business,  or  both.  We 
should  not  be  at  all  chary  about  talking  of  "  confisca- 
tion "  when  it  comes  to  dealing  with  criminals.  We 
must,  as  a  people,  speedily  get  the  machinery  of  gov- 


The  Land  of  Lk'ijig  Men  227 

ernment  —  the  law  making  and  interpreting  power  — 
so  into  our  own  hands  through  the  simple  and  direct 
methods  already  enumerated,  that  we  can  put  a  speedy 
end  to  this  travesty  on  justice  and  order. 

I  do  not  believe  in  condemning  any  man.  My  own 
errors  and  shortcomings  forbid  that.  So  to  a  greater 
or  less  extent  do  those  of  every  man.  It  is  only  an  all- 
wise  and  a  faultless  being  that  is  capable  of  judging  or 
condemning;  only  on  the  part  of  such  would  it  be  at 
all  consistent.  But  such  a  being  I  believe  would  find 
no  place  in  his  mind  or  in  his  heart  for  condemnation. 
And  understanding  so  well  the  frailties  of  human 
nature,  in  all  his  judgments  he  would  be  most  lenient. 
But  when  a  certain  order  of  society  is  established  that 
men  may  live  harmoniously  and  mutually  advanta- 
geously together,  certain  forms  must  be  established  and 
obedience  to  them  must  be  compelled. 

We  must  drive  the  money-changers  from  the  Temple 
even  as  the  Christ  drove  them  in  His  day.  In  connec- 
tion with  all  the  frailties  of  human  nature  He  was  su- 
premely charitable.  The  only  ones  He  ever  judged 
harshly  or  ever  really  condemned,  so  far  as  we  have 
any  record  at  least,  were  those  who  bound  burdens  on 
other  men's  backs,  who  never  raised  even  a  finger  to 
make  them  lighter,  who  sought  ever  to  gain  advantage 
at  another's  disadvantage,  who  oppressed  or  who 
robbed  the  people.  When  we  put  forth  the  restraining 
hand  to  hold  in  check  or  to  drive  completely  out  of 
business  men  who  rend  and  tear  the  flesh  from  other 
men,  simply  that  they  may  gorge  themselves,  —  not 
that  they  need  food,  —  then  we  will  manifest  somewhat 


228  TJic  Land  of  Living  Men 

the  wisdom  and  insight  that  were  manifested  by  Him, 
who  understood  so  fully  our  common  human  nature 
that  He  was  all  compassion  and  forgiveness  for  all  save 
those  who  oppressed,  who  made  burdens  heavier,  who 
sought  for  advantage  to  another's  disadvantage. 

I  know  it  is  a  fascinating  game,  this  financial  game. 
I  also  know  well  that  great  law  of  life,  that  we  grow 
into  the  likeness  of  those  things  we  habitually  contem- 
plate. As  is  one's  dominating  thought,  so  his  Hfe  be- 
comes. As  within,  so  without  —  simply  the  direct  law 
of  cause  and  effect.  I  therefore  know  that  the  game 
with  some  natures  becomes  so  fascinating  and  so  irre- 
sistible that  they  are  carried  to  depths  and  extremes 
that  they  never  even  contemplated  at  the  start.  To 
reach  out  and  gain  an  additional  million  now  and  then 
that  he  does  not  earn,  but  by  hook  and  crook,  by  gain- 
ing or  taking  some  manifestly  unfair  advantage,  by  a 
contemptuous  defiance,  or  by  a  brazen,  open  violation 
of  law,  or  by  a  process  of  indirect  murder,  as  many  a 
million  among  us  has  been  gained  —  and  the  greater 
shame  upon  us  as  a  people  —  becomes  fascinating  and 
well-nigh  irresistible.  But  where  men  are  absolutely 
incapable  of  exercising  self-restraint,  but  are  given  to 
excesses  and  crimes  that  are  not  only  detrimental  to 
society,  but  are  destructive  to  the  very  forces  that  hold 
society  together,  then  it  is  clearly  our  duty  to  deal  with 
such  by  way  of  restraint  the  same  as  we  restrain  the 
lesser  criminal. 

The  point  is  simply  this  —  we  must  stop  recognizing 
men  and  groups  of  men  who  are  engaged  in  these  prac- 
tices as  among  our  "  successful   and   representative  " 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  229 

citizens.  We  must  look  upon  these  "  rich  men  without 
moral  sense  consumed  by  greed,  devoid  of  scruples  and 
utterly  contemptuous  of  the  rights  of  the  people,"  as 
the  oppressors,  as  the  law-breakers,  as  the  criminals 
that  they  actually  are.  We  must  deal  with  them  by 
way  of  restraint  in  exactly  the  same  manner  as  we  deal 
with  all  other  types  of  criminals.  It  is  only  by  treat- 
ment such  as  this  that  we  can  hope  to  cope  with  this 
type,  this  most  dangerous  type  of  criminal  that  has  be- 
come so  rampant  and  so  bold  and  so  brazen  among  us. 
Just  as  sensible  to  attempt  to  kill  an  elephant  or  retard 
his  progress  with  a  pop-gun  and  its  attendant  paper 
wads,  as  to  try  to  head  off  or  to  keep  even  with  the  cor- 
rupt and  criminal  practices  that  these  men  and  feder- 
ated groups  of  men  are  constantly  operating  under,  by 
meting  out  to  them  the  penalty  of  a  fine,  either  nominal 
or  heavy. 

In  addition  to  the  possession  of  these  weapons,  one 
of  the  most  significant  features  of  the  way  the  people 
will  win  out  in  the  great  battles  that  are  now  on  for  a 
clean,  a  truly  representative,  and  a  continually  advanc- 
ing government,  is  the  type  of  young  men  that  are  nozv 
coming  into  the  field  of  political  action  both  as  voters 
and  as  men  who  will  stand  for  and  who  will  be  elected 
to  public  office.  Here  lies  one  of  the  most  encouraging 
and  significant  features  or  facts  of  the  times.  Already 
in  some  sections  they  are  throwing  out  their  battle 
lines,  and  some  of  the  old-time  and  hitherto  secure 
bosses  and  machine  managers  are  fighting  with  a  des- 
perate chance  to  retain  their  hold.  Some  are  already 
down  and  out,  others  are  rapidly  on  the  way.     What 


230  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

has  occurred  at  a  few  points  already  is  enough,  as  I 
have  heard  it  aptly  put,  to  drive  the  old-time  apostle  of 
"  regularity  "  to  drink  or  to  suicide.  Some  of  the  old- 
time  bosses  and  machine  managers  as  well  as  machine 
wards  are  already  believing  in  their  vague  superstitious 
bewilderment  that  the  methods  of  Hell  have  broken 
loose  and  have  crossed  the  border,  and  others  that  Hell 
even  is  crazy.  They  are  asking,  what  next?  and  won- 
dering where  the  next  blow  will  fall. 

To  the  young  man  who  will  consent  to  stand  for  or 
who  will  aspire  to  public  office,  I  would  say,  be  suffi- 
ciently wise  and  far-sighted  as  not  to  aim  for  or  not  to 
stop  at  the  politician's  stage.  You  will  have  to  dirty 
your  fingers  continually,  and  you  will  have  to  lower 
your  ideals  and  your  whole  trend  of  life  if  you  do,  you 
will  have  to  associate  with  and  have  as  your  constant 
and  many  times  unwelcome  companions  dirty  and 
selfish  and  scheming  men.  You  will  take  your  orders 
from  a  boss,  you  will  become  subservient  to  him.  He 
will  keep  you  as  long  as  he  and  his  like  have  use  for 
you.  Association  and  like  trends  of  thought  will  in 
time  mould  you  into  his  likeness.  You  may  sink  to  his 
level  and  in  time  become  a  boss  —  a  parasite  now  rap- 
idly becoming  despicable  in  the  public  estimation ;  but 
the  chances  are  that  you  will  get  so  far  and  no  farther. 
You  will  thereby  set  your  own  limitations,  and  in  latter 
years  you  will  confess  that  your  life  is  a  disappoint- 
ment, as  it  will  indeed  be  to  your  family  and  to  all  of 
your  tnte  friends. 

If  the  stufif  is  in  you,  then  I  beg  of  you  to  strike  for 
the  higher  ground.     If  the  stuff  is  in  you,  you  may 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  2t,i 

reach  the  statesman  stage,  but  you  will  reach  it  only 
by  never  making  a  deal  whereby  honour  is  sacrificed, 
and  by  being  far-sighted  enough  and  brave  and  reso- 
lute enough  to  stand  and  to  stand  uncompromisingly 
for  such  measures  of  public  policy  and  such  methods 
of  party  management  as  are  always  for  the  people's 
greatest  good. 

If  then  the  stuff  is  in  you,  if  you  are  wise  and  re- 
sourceful, you  need  n't  bother  so  much  about  retaining 
the  people's  support,  about  retaining  hold  on  your  posi- 
tion. The  people  will  attend  to  that.  We  need  more 
such  men.  We  need  more  such  young  men  that  the 
people  find  it  a  pleasure  and  a  duty  to  support.  We 
need  more  such  young  men  to  come  from  our  farms, 
which  contain  to-day  one  of  the  most  interesting  and 
promising  sets  of  young  men  in  the  entire  world.  We 
need  more  such  young  men  from  our  workshops  and 
from  all  the  ranks  of  labor.  We  need  more  from  the 
ranks  of  the  wealthy  and  economically  independent. 
We  need  more  such  young  men  to  come  from  our  col- 
leges and  universities.  We  are  able  to  recognize  such 
men  when  they  are  really  to  be  found. 

There  is  nothing  that  so  takes  hold  of  men,  that  so 
challenges  their  admiration,  that  so  compels  their  re- 
spect and  their  support  as  downright  honesty  of  pur- 
pose, as  a  courage  that  compels  a  man  to  stand  firmly 
or  to  drive  on  until  he  accomplishes  what  an  upright 
soul  that  will  make  no  compromise  with  dishonour  com- 
pels. Such  men  compel  the  support  of  the  people  that 
lesser  and  compromising  and  timid  men  continually 
seek.    Does  this  not  give  us  hope  for  the  futiire  of  our 


232  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

country  and  institutions?  Does  it  not  give  us  renewed 
faith  in  our  old  human  nature  that  we  have  so  many 
times  questioned  ?  Does  it  not  give  us  a  renewed  faith 
for  the  future  of  the  race  ? 

Again  to  the  young  man  entering  or  contemplating 
entering  political  life  —  If  you  have  contemplated  em- 
ploying the  methods  first  enumerated  and  stopping  at 
the  politician  stage,  then  think  again  and  be  wise  and 
keep  out  altogether.  Stay  in  the  workshop,  on  the 
farm,  at  your  business,  your  profession,  and  have 
thereby  a  more  satisfactory  life,  and  a  life  of  more 
value  to  your  fellow-men  than  it  would  be  if  you  en- 
tered politics  on  this  basis.  If,  however,  you  have  the 
material  in  you  and  a  determination  sufficient  to  meas- 
ure up  to  the  stature  of  the  statesman,  then,  for  God's 
sake,  go  into  political  life,  and  stay  in  if  you  can,  as 
long  as  a  well-rounded  life  will  permit.  You  could  do 
no  nobler  thing. 

The  time  has  come,  and  it  should  have  come  long 
ago,  to  put  these  machines  and  bosses,  these  crooks  and 
these  traitors  of  the  country  out  of  business.  We  have 
indeed  come  face  to  face  with  a  crisis  in  our  political 
life  as  great  as  has  ever  existed  from  the  days  of  the 
Colonies  to  the  present  time.  The  call  of  the  country 
goes  out  to  every  decent  man  and  woman  as  urgent  as 
has  ever  gone  out.  The  call  to  service  of  great  armies 
of  patriotic  and  determined  men  and  women  is  loud 
and  insistent,  and  no  service  has  ever  been  rendered  of 
greater  import  and  of  greater  need  than  zve  are  called 
upon  to  render.  It  is  a  service  of  a  type  different  from 
that  that  has  called,  and  that  has  been  nobly  responded 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  233 

to  before,  but  it  is  just  as  sorely  needed  and  just  as 
praiseworthy. 

Leaders  who  have  the  insight  to  discern  and  to  hunt 
out,  and  the  courage  to  battle  against  these  agents  of 
political  and  business  degradation  are  coming  rapidly 
to  the  front.  They  need  our  sympathy  and  our  confi- 
dence —  they  need  our  quick  and  active  support  and 
co-operation.  It  is  how  the  average  citizen  bears  him- 
self in  this  crisis  that  is  to  determine  its  outcome. 
Therefore,  after  all  is  said  and  done,  no  man  can  longer 
be  a  decent  citizen  —  he  may  be  a  thoroughly  good 
man,  but  no  longer  a  decent  citisen  —  who  does  not 
interest  himself,  inform  himself,  and  join  with  or  lead 
in  this  great  fight  that  is  to  rid  our  body  politic  of  these 
costly,  degrading,  damnable  influences. 

We  of  the  East  would  do  well  to  turn  for  instruction 
and  inspiration  along  these  lines  to  many  portions  of 
the  great  middle  and  far  West.  They  are  already 
ahead  of  us  in  many  things  and  in  nothing,  perhaps, 
more  than  along  these  political  and  business  regener- 
ating lines.  It  is  only  those  who  come  or  who  have 
come  in  close  contact  with  these  portions  of  the  nation, 
and  with  the  teeming,  untrammelled,  independently 
thinking  and  acting  life  there,  that  realize  at  all  ade- 
quately this  fact.  The  "  decadent  East "  will  truly 
express  the  situation  unless  we  here  are  quickly  up  and 
doing. 

Direct  legislation  through  the  Initiative  and  Refer- 
endum, through  the  agency  of  Direct  Nominations  by 
the  people,  and  through  that  long-range  rifle,  the  Re- 
call, has  already  put  down  and  out  some  of  the  most 


234  ^1^^  Land  of  Living  Men 

thoroughly  intrenched  and  notorious  political  machines 
and  bosses  and  have  brought  the  people's  rule  and  busi- 
ness affairs  back  into  their  own  hands.  In  regard  to 
one  of  the  most  recent  occurrences  a  leading  New  York 
paper  in  an  editorial  hints  that  the  smashing  of  the 
bosses  of  one  state  by  means  of  the  weapon  —  The 
Direct  Primary  —  may  help  "  to  explain  why  the  New 
York  bosses  dread  it  as  the  devil  does  holy  water." 


IX 

TEE  GREAT  NATION  — ITS  PEOPLE,  ITS 

POWERS,  ITS  POSSIBILITIES  — THE 

GREATER  NATION 

^^^^^M  HERE  never  has  been,  and  from  the  very 
'  ■  ■/^■^^  nature  of  human  nature  there  never  can  be, 
ji:;||^I^P:[  a  truly  great  and  long-lived  nation  where 
i^^^^^?  one  class  of  people  rule,  and  another  class 
or  the  other  classes  are  ruled.  The  great  nation  is  that 
alone  in  which  the  people  rule,  where  through  their 
agent  —  the  state  or  government  —  they  attend  to  their 
own  affairs,  and  where  they  do  not  allow  others  to  at- 
tend to  their  affairs  for  them.  Government  must  be 
thoroughly  and  truly  representative,  or  those  in  power 
will  gradually  get  the  agents  of  administration  and  of 
production  so  under  their  control,  and  will  so  use  them 
for  their  own  gain  and  their  continually  increasing 
powers,  that  in  time  the  very  liberties  of  the  people  will 
be  stolen  away. 

Of  late,  we  have  been  having  some  very  direct  revela- 
tions of  the  actual  conditions  of  government  in  Russia, 
where  a  group  of  eminently  "  respectable  and  high-born 
gentlemen,"  among  them  no  less  than  an  august  com- 
pany of  Grand  Dukes,  have  for  many  years  been  direct- 
ing the  affairs,  —  in  a  sense,  ruling  this  nation  of  con- 
siderably over  one  hundred  million  people.     Some  own 

235 


236  The  Land  of  Lking  Men 

as  high  as  a  dozen  or  more  palaces,  all  splendidly  or 
even  sumptuously  equipi)ed,  with  annual  incomes  reach- 
ing into  the  millions.  This  all  comes  from  the  people  of 
Russia  —  chiefly  the  working  people.  What  tlieir  con- 
dition is,  late  events  have  also  revealed  to  the  world,  and 
more  clearly  than  ever  before.  The  hopeless  state  of 
inefficiency  that  this  governing  class  has  kept  the  nation 
in,  and  has  prevented  it  from  rising  out  of,  the  whole 
world  now  knows. 

But  the  people  of  Russia,  I  hear  it  said,  have  not  yet 
attained  their  freedom,  and  so  are  not  able  to  prevent 
other  men  ruling  over  them,  notwithstanding  the  state 
of  affairs  that  such  a  system  means.  Very  true,  but 
there  is  another  truth  perhaps  even  more  significant  for 
us.  There  have  been  nations  where  the  people  have 
fought  for  and  have  won  their  freedom,  but  where 
through  lack  of  due  vigilance,  and  by  reason  of  the 
growing  and  in  time  mastering  greed  of  privileged  and 
excessive  wealth,  their  liberties  have  been  stolen  away ; 
and  their  covmtry,  of  which  they  were  formerly  proud, 
has  through  the  inevitable  resultant  internal  decay  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  the  despoiler.  The  greed  for  gain  be- 
comes so  powerful  that  unless  the  great  common  people 
find  some  way  of  checking  or  controlling  it,  those  that 
become  mastered  by  it  will  pillage  the  very  liberties  of 
their  country  as  quickly  as  they  will  loot  a  hospital  train. 

Recent  developments  in  our  own  nation,  even  within 
the  last  twelvemonth,  have  clearly  demonstrated  that 
there  are  among  us,  men  of  otherwise  high  standing, 
eminently  respectable,  in  learning,  in  church  standing. 
in  society,  but  who  have  gotten  so  under  the  drunken 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  237 

sway  of  the  greed  for  gain  that  they  would  not  only  loot 
a  hospital  train,  but  also  a  funeral  train  were  the  pro- 
spective inducements  sufficiently  large,  and  were  the 
chances  of  not  being  discovered  at  it  of  a  sufficiently 
rosy  hue.  Plain  speaking?  But  a  man  who  will  cause 
or  connive  at  death  for  gain,  and  many  a  death  has  been 
caused  by  the  scheming,  the  cunning  and  the  depreda- 
tions of  some  of  those  we  term  financiers,  even  within 
the  past  few  months,  is  indeed  worse  in  his  depreda- 
tions than  the  one  who  will  despoil  the  dead. 

"  The  law  of  disintegration  and  destruction  never 
sleeps  and  only  eternal  vigilance  can  check  it.  Every 
age  brings  its  own  dangers,  and  those  that  come 
stealthily  are  frequently  more  fatal  than  those  that  come 
with  a  mighty  noise.  .  .  .  Instead  of  an  armed  foe  that 
we  can  meet  on  the  field,  there  is  to-day  an  enemy  that 
is  invisible,  but  everywhere  at  work  destroying  our  in- 
stitutions ;  that  enemy  is  corruption.  It  seeks  to  direct 
official  action,  it  dictates  legislation  and  endeavors  to 
control  the  construction  of  laws.  .  .  .  The  flag  has  been 
praised  at  champagne  dinners,  while  the  very  pole  from 
which  it  floated  was  being  eaten  off  by  corruption,  and 
republican  institutions  were  being  stabbed  to  the  vitals. 
A  new  gospel  has  come  among  us,  according  to  which 
'  It  is  mean  to  rob  a  hen  roost  or  a  hen,  but  plundering 
thousands  makes  us  gentlemen.'  " 

As  there  can  be  no  great  nation  without  government 
by  the  people,  so  there  can  be  no  great  nation  without  a 
continual  vigilance  on  the  part  of  the  people.  Vigilance 
is  the  price  that  must  ever  be  paid  for  continued  Uberty. 


238  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

Equal  advantag-es  and  opportunities  for  all,  which  is 
fundamental  in  any  great  nation,  without  active  vigi- 
lance on  the  part  of  the  people  will  be  quietly  and 
craftily  changed  into  privilege  for  the  few  to  be  en- 
riched through  the  toil  of  the  many.  And  as  wealth  in- 
creases wealth,  and  power  increases  power,  we  can 
readily  see  how  privilege  and  its  concomitant,  oppres- 
sion, has  in  time  spelled  destruction  to  so  many  former 
states. 

The  fact  that  we  have  so  much  to  read  from  history, 
and  so  clearly  and  so  repeatedly,  makes  me  so  full  of 
hope  that  there  is  coming  among  us  a  people's  move- 
ment that  is  to  redeem  and  save  this  nation.  And  cer- 
tainly there  is  now  no  power  of  any  other  nature  that 
can  do  it.  Moreover,  this  movement  must  not  be  un- 
duly delayed,  for  concentrated  wealth  and  privilege  are 
growing  with  such  gigantic  strides  that  every  year,  or 
now,  even  every  month  of  delay,  on  account  of  their 
continually  growing  intrenchments,  makes  the  people's 
task  more  and  more  difficult. 

The  great  nation,  putting  it  in  another  form,  is  that 
in  which  the  people  realize  the  fact  that  they  are  not 
separate  from  or  apart  from  government,  but  that  they, 
in  a  sense,  are  government.  It  is  indeed  strange,  where 
this  is  not  a  part  of  the  active  consciousness  of  the 
people,  what  a  little  group  of  men  and  families  is  able 
to  do  in  gaining  control  of  the  agencies  and  necessities 
upon  which  the  welfare  or  even  the  very  life  of  the 
people  depends. 

And  nothing  has  been  more  clearly  and  more  repeat- 
edly demonstrated  in  the  history  of  nations  than  the  fact 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  239 

that  he  who  owns  or  controls  that  upon  which  others 
depend,  owns  or  controls  them  also.  It  is  possible  for 
there  to  be  a  nation  of  slaves  without  the  word  slave  or 
any  word  of  a  kindred  nature  ever  being  used.  The 
more  shrewd  and  cunning  the  owners,  the  more  careful 
will  they  be  to  see  that  no  word  or  sign  or  mark  describ- 
ing the  actual  condition  of  those  owned  or  controlled  be 
used  or  even  hinted. 

Where  the  people  are  keen  and  alert  as  to  who  and 
what  they  are  in  relation  to  government,  or  rather  what 
government  is  in  relation  to  them,  there  will  be  found 
a  people  who  see  to  it  that  every  opportunity  is  given  to 
those  who  aim  to  do  right.  Such  a  people  will  see  that 
among  the  great  mass  of  their  toilers,  upon  whose 
sturdy  welfare  and  good-keeping  the  very  welfare  and 
ability  of  the  nation  to  progress,  or  to  continue  even  to 
exist  at  all,  depends,  there  are  not  untold  thousands 
who  are  working  from  early  to  late  year  in  and  year 
out,  getting  merely  or  barely  enough  for  each  day's 
work  to  provide  them  with  food  and  clothing  and  shel- 
ter that  they  may  be  on  hand  for  to-morrow's  work, 
and  to-morrow's  and  to-morrow's  —  lives  devoid  of  all 
learning  and  art  and  leisure  and  hope,  and  even  rest  — 
those  elements  that  are  so  essential  to  any  life  that  is 
not  the  life  of  the  slave.  This  does  not  conduce  to  that 
intelligent  and  progressive  and  happy  citizenship  that 
makes  for  a  real  nation  of  freemen. 

The  great  nation  is,  again,  that  in  which  the  agencies 
of  production  —  and  especially  those  that  come  under 
the  head  of  natural  monopolies,  those  things  upon  which 
all  the  people  depend  —  are  owned  and  administered  as 


240  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

nearly  as  is  possible  by  their  ag^ent,  the  state,  and  so 
administered  for  the  good  and  the  welfare  of  all,  and 
are  not  permitted  to  be  monopolized  by  the  few  for 
their  own  enormous  enrichment,  and  therefore,  at  the 
expense  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people.  It  is  the  pri- 
vate ownership  or  control  of  these,  as  we  have  seen,  that 
has  permitted  the  growth  of  our  enormously  rich  men 
and  families  that  are  becoming  so  intrenched  that  they 
are  now  a  menace  to  the  very  life  of  a  nation  of  freemen. 

The  great  nation  is  not  that  where  through  this  un- 
natural use  of  these  common  belongings  we  have  a 
small  class  of  rich  and  powerful  men  living  in  their 
castles  and  their  villas  with  great  hordes  of  hirelings  or 
dependents  about  them.  This  is  something  in  regard 
to  which  history's  lesson  is  most  clearly  written. 

The  nation  with  which  we  are  dealing  is,  again,  the 
one  quick  to  see  its  weaknesses,  also  the  danger  of  run- 
ning into  and  working  in  ruts,  or  remaining  in  ways 
that  were  once  advisable  and  reasonable,  but  where  the 
time  has  long  since  passed  for  it  to  continue  in  these 
ways,  and  where  a  continued  growth  and  advancement, 
to  say  nothing  of  its  even  holding  its  own,  demands 
that  it  keep  up  with  the  process  of  evolution  and  growth 
that  is  ever  working  to  lift. the  minds  and  the  hearts  of 
men,  and  hence  their  relations,  to  continually  higher 
planes. 

It  is  also  the  nation  that  is  alive  and  keen  to  the  les- 
sons that  can  be  learned  from  other  nations  and  peoples. 
Many  times  the  younger  nations  where  great  concen- 
trations of  wealth  with  its  debauchery  of  the  agencies  of 
government  on  the  one  hand,  and  its  oppression  on  the 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  241 

other,  have  not  yet  g-otten  a  foothold,  and  which  there- 
fore are  filled  with  men  and  women  of  lofty  purpose 
and  ambitions  for  a  nation  better  than  has  yet  been, 
have  commendable  features  that  the  older  ones  can 
adopt  and  adapt  to  their  own  institutions  with  great 
advantage. 

The  welfare  of  the  great  nation  depends  above  all 
things,  perhaps,  upon  the  general  intelligence  of  its 
people,  and  the  more  general  and  widespread  this  in- 
telligence the  greater,  the  happier  and  the  more  endur- 
ing the  nation.  That  it  cannot  be  an  intelligence  and 
education  on  the  part  of  the  few,  while  ignorance  or  a 
lack  of  intelligence  holds  among  the  larger  numbers, 
has  been  shown  most  clearly  in  connection  with  nations 
that  were  once  among  the  great,  but  that  are  not  now 
known  except  in  history,  or  that  have  fallen  from  their 
place  among  the  ablest  to  a  position  among  the  back- 
ward and  the  unimportant. 

Free  and  open  educational  opportunities  for  all,  for 
the  poorest  as  well  as  the  richest,  is  undoubtedly  the 
best  road  to  a  general  diffusion  of  intelligence  among 
the  people.  It  is  possible  to  have  widespread  educa- 
tional facilities  and  still  for  there  to  be  whole  armies  of 
children  numbering  into  the  thousands  of  thousands  or 
into  the  millions,  who,  on  account  of  carelessness  or 
greed  or  incapacity  on  the  part  of  parents,  or  other 
causes,  are  deprived  until  it  is  too  late,  of  what  should 
be  the  privilege,  and  more,  the  right,  the  sacred  right, 
of  ez'ery  child. 

The  state  must  see  to  it  more  carefully  than  it  does, 
that  attendance  at  school,  or  some  adequate  means  of 


242  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

education,  be  made  more  carefully  and  more  generally 
compulsory  than  it  now  is. 

That  army  of  nearly  two  million  child  laborers  from 
five  to  fifteen  years  of  age,  who  are  this  very  day  toil- 
ing in  our  mills  and  sweat-shops  and  factories  and 
mines,  must  be  relieved  that  they  too  may  have  the 
equipment  in  mind  and  in  body  sufficient  to  enable  them 
to  enter  upon  the  plane  of  life's  activities  with  oppor- 
tunities somewhat  equal  to  the  other  millions  of  the 
same  ages. 

We  have  an  excellent  free  educational  system  in  the 
United  States ;  but  it  is  to  a  great  extent,  and  far  more 
perhaps  than  we  realize,  offset  by  this  denial  of  oppor- 
tunity to  this  great  army  of  rapidly  coming  citizens, 
who  most  of  all  need  these  opportunities  to  enable  them 
to  have  anything  like  a  fair  chance  in  their  struggles 
for  a  self-supporting  competency,  or  even  for  exist- 
ence at  all. 

Greed  for  gain,  and  clearly  illegitimate  gain,  will 
prove  triumphant  and  will  stifle  the  higher  promptings 
of  the  nation's  heart,  unless  we  compel  every  man  run- 
ning a  parasitic  business  or  enterprise  to  be  decent. 

"  To  what  purpose  then  is  our  '  age  of  invention  '  ? 
Why  these  machines  at  all,  if  they  do  not  help  to  lift 
care  from  the  soul  and  burden  from  the  back  ?  To  what 
purpose  is  our  '  age  of  enlightenment,'  if,  just  to  cover 
our  nakedness,  we  establish  among  us  a  barbarism  that 
overshadows  the  barbarism  of  the  savage  cycle?  Is 
this  the  wisdom  of  the  wise?  Is  this  the  Christianity 
we  boast  of  and  parade  in  benighted  Madagascar  and 
unsaved   Malabar?     Is   this   what   our   orators   mean 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  243 

when  they  jubilate  over  '  civiHzation  '  and  '  the  prog- 
ress of  the  species  '  ? 

"  And  why  do  these  children  know  no  rest,  no  play, 
no  learning,  nothing  but  the  grim  grind  of  existence? 
Is  it  because  we  are  all  naked  and  shivering?  Is  it  be- 
cause there  is  sudden  destitution  in  the  land?  Is  it  be- 
cause pestilence  walks  at  noonday?  Is  it  because  war's 
red  hand  is  pillaging  our  storehouses  and  burning  our 
cities  ?  No,  forsooth !  Never  before  were  the  store- 
houses so  crammed  to  bursting  with  bolts  and  bales  of 
every  warp  and  woof.  No,  forsooth !  The  children, 
while  yet  in  the  gristle,  are  ground  down  that  a  few 
more  useless  millions  may  be  heaped  up.  We  boast 
that  we  are  leading  the  commercialism  of  the  world, 
and  we  grind  in  our  mills  the  bones  of  the  little  ones  to 
make  good  our  boast. 

"  What  avail  our  exports,  our  tariffs,  our  dividends, 
if  they  rise  out  of  these  treasons  against  God?  All 
gains  are  losses,  all  riches  are  poverties,  so  long  as  the 
soul  is  left  to  rot  down."  * 

There  are  golden  oportunities  for  earnest  men  and 
women  to  enter  upon  a  determined  work  in  every  one 
of  our  states  until  conditions  along  these  lines  in  every 
one  of  them  are  what  they  should  be.  Magnificent 
work  has  already  been  and  is  being  done  on  the  part  of 
many ;  the  help  of  more,  those  who  have  a  singleness  of 
purpose  that  does  not  stop  even  in  the  face  of  defeats 
until  the  thing  is  done,  is  solely  needed. 

But  outside  of  this  great  army  of  children  at  work  at 

*  "  The  Hoe-Man  in  the  Making."  Edwin  Markham,  in  the 
September   (1906)   Cosmopolitan. 


244  ^^^^  Land  of  Living  Men 

that  important  period  when  they  should  be  getting 
their  equipment  for  Ufe's  work  and  duties,  many  times 
at  the  expense  of  great  bodily  injury  as  well  as  intellec- 
tual and  moral,  there  are  almost  unbelievingly  large 
numbers  that  are  in  school  but  very  little,  and  still 
others  that  are  there  none  at  all.  Every  child  in  school 
until  a  certain  age  or  until  a  sufficient  equipment  to  meet 
the  ordinary  duties  of  life  is  reached,  should  be  the 
nation's  motto. 

It  is  also  eminently  fitting  that  something  be  said  of 
the  quality  of  the  education  it  is  proposed  to  make 
compulsory  attendance  upon  universal.  To  come  at 
once  to  the  point  in  mind,  and  briefly  —  training  of  the 
intellect  alone  is  not  sufficient ;  we  shall  remain  a  long 
way  off  from  the  ideal  until  we  make  moral,  humane, 
heart-training  a  far  more  important  feature  of  our 
educational  systems  than  we  have  made  it  thus  far. 
We  are  advancing  in  this  respect,  but  we  have  great 
advances  yet  to  make.  Kindness  and  consideration, 
sympathy  and  fraternity,  love  of  justice  —  the  full  and 
ready  willingness  to  give  it  as  well  as  to  demand  it,  the 
clear-cut  comprehension  of  the  majesty  and  beauty  that 
escapes  into  the  life  of  the  individual  as  he  understands 
and  appropriates  to  himself  the  all-embracing  contents 
of  the  golden  rule. 

The  training  of  the  intellect  alone  at  the  expense  of 
the  "  humanities  "  has  made  or  has  enlarged  the  power 
of  many  a  criminal,  many  a  usurper  of  other  men's 
homes  and  property,  many  an  oppressor,  and  has 
thereby  added  poison  and  desolation  to  his  own  life  as 
well  as  to  the  lives  of  those  with  whom  he  has  come  in 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  245 

contact  and  who  have  felt  his  bhghting  and  withering 
influence.  It  is  also  chiefly  from  those  without  this 
training,  that  that  great  body  of  our  fellow-creatures 
which  we  term  the  animal  world,  receive  their  most 
thoughtless  and  cruel  treatment,  and  perhaps  from 
among  none  more  than  among  the  fashionable  rich. 

I  think  there  is  another  feature  in  our  educational 
systems  that  we  would  do  wisely  to  give  more  attention 
to.  In  a  nation  of  free  institutions,  more  attention 
could  wisely  be  given  to  systematic  and  concrete  in- 
struction in  connection  with  the  institutions  of  govern- 
ment, and  in  connection  with  this  a  training  in  civic 
pride  that  sees  to  it  that  our  public  offices  are  filled  with 
men  of  at  least  ordinary  honesty  and  integrity,  men 
who  regard  public  office  as  a  public  trust  worthy  the 
service  of  their  highest  manhood,  rather  than  with  those 
whose  eye  is  single  to  the  largest  amount  of  loot  and 
graft  that  comes  within  the  range  of  their  vision  and  the 
reach  of  their  hand. 

Such  a  system  would  in  time  spell  the  end  of  Tam- 
many Hall  —  a  Democratic  organization  in  New  York 
City,  whose  chief  object  is  to  make  politics  a  cover  to 
divert  the  largest  possible  sums  of  money  from  the 
people  of  the  City  of  New  York  to  line  the  pockets,  and 
in  great  abundance,  of  those  in  control  of  the  body  of 
loot.  It  would  in  time  spell  the  end  of  the  Republican 
rings  and  Halls  whose  object  and  purpose  is  identically 
the  same  in  every  city  where  they  have  been  able  to  gain 
control,  as  well  as  the  Democratic  rings  in  cities  other 
than  New  York.  The  methods  of  the  rings  of  the  one 
are  equally  black  with  the  methods  of  the  rings  of  the 


246  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

other ;  where  the  motives  are  the  same  the  resultant 
action  is  the  same.* 

Our  educational  methods  are  developing-.  In  edu- 
cational work  are  some  of  our  noblest,  ablest,  foremost 
men  and  women.  There  is  an  element  of  the  practical, 
the  useful,  that  is  now  sort  of  remodelling-  our  earlier 
methods.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  not  only  in 
our  public  schools  but  in  our  colleges  and  universities, 
it  is  possible  to  g-et  as  great  a  degree  of  "  training "' 
from  branches  that  are  in  themselves  useful,  that  will  be 
of  actual  use  later  on,  as  out  of  those  that  are  used  for 
their  training  value  only.  The  element  of  the  useful, 
not  at  the  expense  of  the  training,  but  combined  with  it, 
should  be,  I  think,  and  is  coming  to  be,  the  marked 
feature  of  our  developing  educational  methods. 

The  bread  and  butter  problem  will  be  the  problem  of 
practically  all  in  our  common  or  public  schools  to-day. 
There  probably  will  not  be  one  in  a  thousand  whose 
problem  it  will  not  be.  To  make  our  educational  sys- 
ems  so  that  they  will  be  of  the  greatest  practical  aid  to 
all  as  they  enter  upon  life's  activities  should  be  one  of 
our  greatest  aims.  That  our  college  courses  can  be  im- 
proved to  at  least  from  twenty  to  forty  per  cent,  along 
this  same  line  I  am  fully  persuaded,  in  addition  to  the 
saving  of  considerable  valuable  time  for  those  who,  con- 

*  Of  the  difference  between  party  bosses  a  writer  in  "The 
Interpreter's  House,"  in  the  American  Maga::ine,  says:  "A 
cynical  old  acquaintance  of  mine,  whose  large  corporation 
practice  brought  him  into  close  contact  -with,  practical  politi- 
cians, once  said  that  the  only  difference  between  the  party 
bosses  was  that  the  republican  bosses  were  bolder  and  more 
efficient  and  the  democratic  bosses  came  cheaper." 


The  Laud  of  Living  Men  247 

templating  professional  careers,  will  afterwards  have  to 
spend  a  considerable  period  in  professional  schools. 

When  we  consider  that  not  more  than  one  tenth  of 
one  per  cent  of  those  in  our  common  schools  ever  get  as 
far  as  the  college  or  university,  we  can  see  how  impor- 
tant it  is  that  every  child  be  guaranteed  what  the  law  of 
the  most  ordinary  justice  demands,  that  he  or  she  have 
the  benefit  at  least  of  what  will  enable  him  or  her  to 
enter  upon  the  stage  of  young  manhood  and  young 
womanhood  free  from  such  tremendous  handicaps  with 
which  so  many  are  entering  upon  it  to-day. 

Our  higher  educational  institutions  especially  must 
be  brought  and  must  be  kept  in  more  intimate  and  more 
sympathetic  relations  with  the  common  Hfe.  Here  lies 
their  great  opportunity.  By  this  also  will  be  determined 
their  continual  growth  and  their  real  standing.  The 
tendency  towards  exclusiveness  and  even  snobbishness 
that  is  already  plainh'  manifesting  itself  in  some  of  our 
older  and  wealthier  institutions  must  be  checked  or 
driven  completely  from  them  for  the  good  of  those  who 
otherwise  would  become  snobs  as  well  as  for  the  good 
name  and  standing  of  the  institution  itself.  For  a  col- 
lege man  or  woman  to  get  or  to  entertain  the  idea  that 
he  or  she  is  of  a  quality  at  all  different  from  all  other 
ordinary  intelligent  people  is  a  mental  malady  that  occa- 
sionally makes  consummate  asses  of  some.  Most  all 
get  over  it  in  time,  but  it  has  a  decidedly  crippling  in- 
fluence while  it  lasts. 

Sensible  and  to  the  point  are  the  words  in  the  follow- 
ing brief  extracts  from  a  recent  notable  address  by 
President    Woodrow    Wilson.      After    expressing   the 


248  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

opinion  that  our  churches  of  to-day  are  very  far  from 
adequately  serving  the  masses  of  the  people  he  said : 

"  They  have  more  regard  for  the  pew  rents  than  for 
men's  souls.  They  are  depressing  the  level  of  Christian 
endeavor.  It  is  the  same  with  the  universities.  We 
look  for  the  support  of  the  wealthy  and  neglect  our  op- 
portunities to  serve  the  people.  It  is  for  this  reason  the 
state  university  is  held  in  popular  approval,  while  the 
privately  supported  institution  to  which  we  belong  is 
coming  to  suffer  a  corresponding  loss  of  esteem. 

"  While  attending  a  recent  Lincoln  celebration  I 
asked  myself  if  Lincoln  would  have  been  as  serviceable 
to  the  people  of  this  country  had  he  been  a  college  man 
and  I  was  obliged  to  say  to  myself  that  he  would  not. 

"  The  processes  to  which  the  college  man  is  subjected 
do  not  render  him  serviceable  to  the  country  as  a  whole. 
It  is  for  this  reason  that  I  have  dedicated  every  power 
in  me  to  a  democratic  regeneration.  The  American  col- 
lege must  become  saturated  in  the  same  sympathies  as 
the  common  people.  The  colleges  of  this  country  must 
be  reconstructed  from  the  top  to  the  bottom.  The 
American  people  will  tolerate  nothing  that  savours  of 
exclusiveness.  Their  political  parties  are  going  to 
pieces.  They  are  busy  with  their  moral  regeneration 
and  they  want  leaders  who  can  help  them  to  accom- 
plish it." 

The  great  nation  is  a  religions  nation.  In  order  that 
it  be  truly  religious  it  is  necessary  that  there  be  no  rec- 
ognized or  established  religion,  that  there  be  no  rela- 
tion, or  rather  connection  between  Church  and  State. 

It  is  so  easy  to  confound  i)articulars  with  essentials. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  249 

The  essential,  fundamental  principle,  indeed  the  sum 
and  substance  of  all  true  religion  is — The  conscious- 
ness of  God  in  the  soul  of  man.  To  come  into  the  con- 
scious living  realization  of  the  fact  that  the  Spirit  of 
Infinite  Life  and  Power  that  is  back  of  all,  working  in 
and  through  all,  the  life  of  all,  is  the  life  of  our  life, 
that  there  is  no  life  and  no  power  outside  of  it,  and  that 
in  it  "  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  "  —  to  live 
and  to  act  always  in  this  thought  and  this  realization,  is 
the  religious  life.  Without  it  one  may  belong  to  a  thou- 
sand churches,  or  subscribe  to  the  creeds  of  infinite 
varieties  of  man-made  religious  systems,  but  without 
this,  one  cannot  be  in  the  religious  life.  To  dwell  con- 
sciously and  continually  in  this  Life,  and  thus  allow  it 
to  manifest  through  us,  is  love  to  God.  To  recognize 
it  as  the  life  of  every  other  being,  manifesting  in  differ- 
ent stages  of  Divine  unfoldment,  gives  us  the  real  basis 
for  love  of  the  fellow-man. 

This  marks  also  the  difference  between  the  getting 
and  the  giving  religion,  for  it  is  true  in  religion  that  we 
can  get  only  as  we  give,  the  same  as  is  the  law  in  regard 
to  happiness. 

The  people  of  the  great  nation  is  a  patriotic  people ; 
it  is  an  intensely  patriotic  people.  I  read  from  the  dic- 
tionary a  definition  of  patriot  — "  one  who  loves  his 
country,  and  supports  its  interests."  Through  lack  of 
discrimination  we  have  done  great  violence  to  the  word 
patriotism  in  the  past.  In  its  name  many  foolish  things 
have  been  done.  Most  unpatriotic  and  most  ungodly 
things  have  been  done  in  its  name,  though  many  times 
innocently  done. 


250  The  Laud  of  Living  Men 

We  have  allowed  ourselves  to  be  swayed  by  the  poli- 
tician's patriotism,  by  the  capitalist  looter's  patriotism, 
by  the  demagogic,  self-seeking,  self-constituted  labor 
leader's  patriotism.  They  all  spring  from  the  same 
common  ground  —  self-seeking  at  the  expense  of 
everything  that  is  conducive  to  the  highest  public  wel- 
fare. As  a  people,  however,  we  are  gaining  wonder- 
fully in  discriminating  power.  As  a  consequence  a  new 
order  of  patriotism  is  coming  into  being  and  among  us. 

What  was  at  one  time  confined  to  the  few  brave,  in- 
dependent, advanced  men,  is  now  becoming  common 
among  the  people.  We  are  finding  that  the  elements  of 
justice  and  righteousness,  fraternity  and  godliness,  have 
a  very  direct  relation  to,  or  rather,  that  patriotism  has  a 
very  direct  relation  to  them.  War,  war  and  the  flag, 
were  at  one  time  supposed  to  be  the  only  agents  with 
which  patriotism  was  linked.  To  hurrah  for  the  flag 
and  to  be  eager  to  go  to  the  front  when  the  war  bugles 
sounded,  or  were  likely  to  sound,  was  for  a  long  period 
a  prevailing  idea  of  patriotism.  It  may  still  be  a  way  in 
which  patriotism  may  be  manifested. 

The  people  are  learning  the  real  cause  of  many  wars, 
indeed  the  great  majority  of  them  —  the  bull-headed- 
ness  or  pig-hcadedness,  the.  incapacity  on  the  part  of 
those  having  to  do  with  afl'airs ;  and  again,  the  throw- 
ing of  an  entire  nation  into  war  by  large  and  powerful 
though  unscrupulous  financial  interests  solely  for  gain. 
These  two  agents  are  responsible  for  the  great  bulk,  in- 
deed for  nine  out  of  every  ten,  of  all  modern  wars,  even 
as  they  have  been  for  all  time  past.  Men  are  beginning 
to  realize  that  instead  of  having  anything  to  do  with 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  251 

this  type  of  war,  patriotism  lies  in  refusing  absolutely 
to  aid  or  abet  it  and  in  using  one's  influence  in  a  similar 
way  among  one's  neighbors  more  blunt  and  with  less 
power  of  discernment.  When  we  reach  a  point  where 
the  large  body  of  citizens  see  to  it  that  these  men  and 
their  agents  —  for  the  large  financial  interests  of  the 
unscrupulous  type  almost  invariably  work  through 
agents  many  of  whom  they  place  or  have  the  people 
place  in  public  positions  —  when,  I  repeat,  the  larger 
body  of  citizens  see  to  it  that  these  men  and  their  agents 
are  kept  out  of  public  office,  and  relegate  them  to  the 
subordinate  place  where  they  rightly  belong,  then  we 
will  witness  the  full  birth  of  an  entirely  new  and  a 
higher  order  of  patriotism  that  is  soon  to  be  dominant 
among  us. 

The  highest  patriotism  that  I  know  is  that  which  im- 
pels a  man  to  be  honest,  kind,  hence  thoughtful,  in  all 
his  business  relations  and  in  his  daily  life ;  that  impels 
him  to  the  primary  and  to  give  attention  to  those  fea- 
tures of  our  political  institutions  that  are  of  even  greater 
consequence  than  his  casting  his  vote  on  election  day ; 
that  impels  him  to  think,  and  to  be  discriminating  in 
his  thought ;  that  enables  him  to  be  not  afraid  to  point 
out  and  denounce  the  pure  self-seeker  and  his  dema- 
gogic ways,  be  he  in  public  life,  in  the  ranks  of  high 
standing  financiers,  or  in  the  ranks  of  organized  labor, 
or  in  the  ranks  of  the  common  life.  The  man  whose 
motto  is  not  "  My  country,  be  she  right  or  be  she 
wrong,  but  always  my  counti-y  " ;  but,  "  My  country, 
be  she  always  in  the  right,  and  if  not  in  the  right  then 
God  g-ive  me  the  wisdom  and  the  courage  to  work  as 


252  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

a  patriot  to  help  bring  her  into  the  right,  and  then  may 
she  have  every  God-given  aid  that  she  may  prevail." 
Such  is  the  patriot.  A  continually  and  rapidly  grow- 
ing number  of  men  of  this  stamp  are  appearing  among 
us.     Thus  patriotism  is  witnessing  the  new  birth. 

It  is  this  patriotism  in  the  common  life  that  is  of  the 
high  quality.  Men  who  are  industrious  and  honest  in 
their  work ;  who  are  faithful  to  whatever  tasks  are 
imposed  upon  them;  who  are  as  eager  to  give  justice 
as  to  demand  it ;  who  are  working  industriously  and 
intelligently  in  order  to  take  care  of  themselves  and 
those  dependent  upon  them,  and  thus  remain  self- 
supporting  members  of  the  community ;  who  remain 
brave  and  sweet  in  their  natures  and  who  abide  always 
in  faith  in  face  of  the  hard  or  uncertain  times  that 
come  at  some  time  or  another  and  in  some  form  or 
another  into  the  lives  of  every  one  of  us ;  who  are 
jealous  of  their  country's  honour,  and  of  the  adminis- 
tration of  its  internal  affairs,  for  in  the  life  of  the 
nation  as  in  the  life  of  the  individual,  all  life  is  from 
within  out,  and  as  is  the  inner  so  always  will  be  the 
outer.  These  I  repeat,  are  the  men  and  these  are  the 
conditions  that  are  giving  birth  to  that  new  and  that 
higher  order  of  patriotism  that  is  now  coming  among 
us,  and  that  is  to  take  captive  the  hearts  and  that  is  to 
animate  the  lives  of  men. 

That  wars  in  the  past  have  been,  and  even  at  the 
present  time  are,  too  frequent,  all  thinking  men  and 
women  are  agreed.  That  they  are  in  the  great  ma- 
jority of  cases  entirely  inexcusable,  and  that  there  is 
and  should  be  very  little  use  for  military  forces,  if  any, 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  253 

outside  of  purposes  of  defence,  the  highest  and  most 
inteUigent  portion  of  our  citizenship  thoroughly  be- 
Heves.  And  so  far  as  effectiveness  is  concerned  it  has 
been  proven  time  and  again,  that  a  citicen  soldiery  is 
the  finest  in  the  world.  Neither  vast  bodies  of  men 
drawn  off  from  creative  and  productive  enterprises 
and  made  into  a  professional  soldier  class,  nor  bodies 
of  hirelings,  but  men  who  are  citizens  of  intelligence 
and  training,  and  who  stand  with  the  ear  ready  for  the 
call  to  arms  when  there  is  just  cause  for  their  hearing 
this  call,  such  are  the  intelligent,  such  are  the  brave 
and  the  daring,  such  are  the  most  effective. 

Men  will  not  fight  effectively  for  the  little  price  in 
money  they  are  paid.  They  will  not  fight  effectively 
for  the  glory  of  another,  nor  will  they  fight  effectively 
for  a  mere  tract  of  land.  But  where  homes  are,  and 
institutions  that  they  love  and  revere  and  care  for, 
then  men  will  fight  with  all  that  triumphant  intelligence 
and  all  that  indomitable  daring  that  it  is  possible  to 
call  forth.  With  a  citizen  soldiery  ready  at  the  just 
moment  to  come  from  the  mine,  the  mill,  the  counting- 
house,  the  farm,  thousands  of  thousands  or  millions 
strong,  why  should  there  be  a  vast  professional  sol- 
diery, a  great  non-producing  class  kept  primarily  for 
the  glory  and  to  do  the  bidding  of  a  ruling  class,  but 
supported  almost  entirely  by  the  great  common  people, 
that  is  true  of  the  foolhardy  military  systems  of  various 
European  countries  to-day? 

Then  think  of  the  women  and  children  bv  the  thou- 
sands working  in  the  fields  by  the  side  of  horses  and 
oxen,   and   then   these   vast  armies   of   non-producers, 


254  ^/'^'  Lajid  of  Lk'iiig  Men 

and  for  whose  benefit?  Royalty,  privilege,  capitalism 
in  government  always  depend  upon  the  military  arm 
for  their  support  and,  at  times,  even  for  their  continued 
existence.  When  their  .demands  become  too  great, 
however,  and  too  much  dead  or  dead-beat  timber 
is  thrown  before  the  car  of  progress,  then  even  the 
soldiery  itself  throws  down  its  arms  and  goes  back  to 
the  ranks  and  to  the  cause  of  the  people  whence  they 
came. 

The  only  excuse  for  the  present  gigantic  military 
systems  that  are  in  existence  to-day  is  that  out  of  the 
ruling  classes  there  have  not  yet  come  men  of  sufficient 
brains  and  wisdom  to  meet  with  similar  men  from 
other  nations,  and  come  to  a  sane  and  common-sense 
understanding  regarding  their  relations.  From  the 
people,  as  democracy  grows,  and  whether  it  take  the 
name  or  not,  are  coming  men  and  forces  that  wall  yet 
break  this  hellish  monstrosity  to  a  thousand  pieces  and 
will  send  these  millions  of  men  back  to  the  mills,  to  the 
farms,  back  to  the  homes,  that  they  may  be  as  they 
should  be,  producers  and  equal  sharers  in  the  support 
of  their  country. 

No  it 's  intelligence  and  something  to  fight  for  that 
constitutes  the  effective  in  distinction  from  the  ineffec- 
tive army  or  navy.  Reference  has  been  made  in  this 
part  to  Russia  and  the  condition  of  her  people  —  the 
result  of  allowing  one  class  to  attend  to  the  affairs  of 
the  others  in  matters  of  government.  This  gives  us  the 
basis  for  an  observation  regarding  her  army  and  navy 
in  view  of  somewhat   recent   events. 

Her   navy   was   larger   and    supposedly   superior   to 


Tlic  Land  of  Living  Men  255 

that  of  her  adversary ;  but  the  larger  portion  of  it  soon 
littered  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  and  it  went  there  be- 
cause of  the  superior  intehigence  and  hence  abihty  of 
a  people  whose  government  aims  to  make  intehigence 
the  common  possession  of  the  people.  Her  army  was 
virtually  defeated  in  every  engagement,  chiefly  through 
the  lack  of  ability  on  the  part  of  its  officers  —  for  the 
higher  ability  cannot  be  grown  on  such  soil  —  and 
through  the  lack  of  intelligent  and  hearty  service  on 
the  part  of  her  common  soldiery.  And  this  because 
men  who  are  denied  opportunities  for  the  growth  of 
intelligence  and  who  have  no  homes,  but  who  pay  ex- 
cessive tolls  and  taxes  and  fees  to  others,  can  have 
neither  the  power  nor  the  spirit  of  those  who  have 
such  opportunities  and  who  have  homes.  But  the 
deliverance  of  these,  the  patient  Russian  people,  out 
of  the  hell  which  results  when  the  people  allow  them- 
selves to  be  ruled  instead  of  taking  the  management 
of  their  affairs  into  their  own  hands,  is  near  at  hand. 

There  will  now  be  no  final  settlement  and  no  end, 
until  Bureaucracy,  Czarism,  and  "  Holy  Synods  "  are 
relegated  to  the  place  it  is  a  wonder  they  were  not 
relegated  to  years  ago,  and  a  free  and  delivered  people 
will  stand  as  the  representatives  of  a  new  nation.  The 
same  forces  in  power  in  government  that  would  deny 
freedom,  or  that  would  take  freedom  from  the  people, 
strangle  all  vitality  and  life  even  from  the  church,  so 
that  it  becomes  a  curse  and  a  drawback  instead  of  a 
blessing. 

''  And  the  struggling  masses  must  suffer  through 
the   greed   of   their   rulers,   who   talk   patriotism,    but 


256  The  Land  of  Lh'uig  Men 

never  draw  a  sword  themselves  in  defence  of  their 
country."  But,  it  is  said,  suppose  the  ruler  went  to  the 
front  and  harm  or  death  befell  him,  what  then  for  the 
country  ?  Nonsense,  there  is  n't  a  King  or  an  Em- 
peror ruling  to-day  whose  place  could  not  be  filled  most 
ablv  were  he  to  fall  on  the  field  of  battle,  by  a  hundred 
or  a  thousand  men  from  his  own  country,  and  in  many 
cases  it  must  be  truthfully  said,  more  ably. 

How  often  also  do  those  that  in  legislative  halls  of 
whatever  nation  talk  and  vote  for  war  go  to  the  front 
themselves?  Probably  not  one  in  1,000.  Were  those 
who  instigate  or  who  vote  for  it  compelled  to  go,  war 
would  be  most  infrequent.  So  often  those  that  talk 
the  loudest  of  patriotism  in  its  ordinary  sense  are  the 
greatest  of  cowards.  Hasten  the  day,  which  should 
have  come  long  ago,  when  no  war  can  be  declared 
except  through  a  Plebiscite  of  the  People. 

So  far  then  as  the  soldiery  of  a  nation  is  concerned, 
let  the  interests  of  all  the  people  be  equally  taken  care 
of,  let  there  be  institutions  founded  upon  justice,  upon 
equal  opportunities  for  all  and  special  privileges  for  no 
man,  let  there  be  homes  and  sentiment  encircling  these 
homes,  and  the  keeping  up  of  a  large  military  system 
becomes  but  a  fool's  dream.  There  will  come  from 
such  a  people  a  citizen  soldiery  more  intelligent,  more 
brave  and  determined,  and  therefore  more  effective, 
than  can  ever  come  from  any  professional  fighting 
class,  and  at  a  cost  not  a  hundredth  part  as  great. 

Take  sentiment  from  the  battlefield  and  you  take  its 
chief  source  of  heroism  away.  The  people  of  homes 
and   of    just    institutions    are   a   people   of    sentiment. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  257 

Upon  every  cartridge-box  and  upon  every  rifle  and 
upon  every  field  piece  of  such  a  soldiery  the  word  "  In- 
vincible "  could  most  rightly  be  stamped.  But  of  such 
people  and  such  soldiers  let  it  be  said  to  you,  un- 
scrupulous financial  jugglers,  rulers  and  grand  dukes, 
beware,  for  the  people  are  now  beginning  to  know  your 
tricks.  They  know  that  "  me  and  mine,"  and  the  ever- 
ready  mockery  of  a  trumped-up  patriotism  is  written 
all  over  you,  and  that  had  you  your  way,  you  would 
continue  to  make  dog  soldiers  out  of  great  bodies  of 
your  fellow-men,  you  would  feed  their  bodies  to  the 
vultures  and  leave  their  families  to  weep  in  sorrow 
and  cry  for  bread,  that  you  might  add  to  your  already 
excessive  and  dishonourable  gain,  and  continue  to  live 
in  luxury  even  to  your  own  and  your  descendants' 
moral  and  physical  deterioration  and  destruction. 

The  nations  of  the  world  present  at  the  present  time 
the  appearance  of  a  vast  armed  camp.  In  addition  to 
the  large  armies  there  are  the  vast  navies  being  added 
to  continually  and  at  enormous  expense.  To  the 
former  cruiser  and  battleship  is  added  the  dreadnaught, 
and  to  the  dreadnaught  is  added  the  super-dreadnaught. 
One  nation  no  sooner  projects  and  lays  the  keel  of  a 
monster  engine  of  destruction  of  its  type  than  another 
announces  one  still  larger  and  more  costly.  And  in 
this  age  of  rapid  and  marvellous  invention,  when  one 
thing  is  superseded  by  another  so  rapidly,  it  is  probably 
not  far  from  fact  that  nine-tenths  of  all  these  will  be 
antiquated  and  will  become  junk  before  they  are  ever 
used   for  the  purpose  for  which  they  are  planned. 

And  why  all  this  feverish  preparation,  this  fear  of 


258  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

something,  this  monumental  expenditure?  Is  it  that 
any  one  of  these  nations  is  planning  attack  upon  any 
other  friendly  nation?  Is  it  that  any  nation  is  actually 
fearing  attack  from  any  other  friendly  nation?  All 
sensible  people  know  that  neither  condition  really 
exists. 

There  has  never  been  a  period  in  the  entire  world's 
history  when  nations  and  people  have  understood 
and  known  each  other  better  and  have  been  at  heart 
more  thoroughly  at  peace  with  each  other.  There 
has  never  been  a  time  when  trade  and  commerce 
and  business  relations  of  all  types  between  them  have 
been  greater  and  more  valuable,  and  when  their  dis- 
ruption by  war  would  be  more  costly,  more  senseless, 
and  more  wicked.  Never  would  a  war  between  any 
two  nations  be  more  deprecated  and  more  bitterly  op- 
posed by  the  people  of  those  nations.  Why  then  is 
this  feverish  and  inexplicable  increasing  of  armaments, 
this  enormous  taxation  of  the  people?*     At  the  same 

*  But  a  short  time  ago,  President  William  C.  Brown,  of  the 
New  York  Central  lines,  in  an  address  before  the  Minnesota 
State  Bankers'  Association,  gave  as  his  opinion,  based  upon 
much  careful  investigation,  that  the  chief  cause  of  the  greater 
cost  of  living,  the  cause  compared  to  which  all  others  became 
negligible  factors,  is  "  the  alarming  rapidity  with  which  con- 
sumption of  the  products-  of  the  nation's  farms  is  overtaking 
production."    In  this  connection  he  says : 

"  We  are  building  great  battle-ships,  two  of  them  each  year, 
costing,  equipped  and  complete,  about  $10,000,000  each  —  and 
it  costs  nearly  $1,000,000  per  annum  to  man  and  maintain 
them.  I  am  in  favour  of  an  adequate  navy,  but  I  wish  the 
money  expended  in  building  just  one  battle-ship  could  be  de- 
voted to  this  work  of  improved,  intelligent  agriculture.  . 


The  Land  of  Lk'ing  Men  259 

time  there  was  never  a  period  when  the  principle  of 
arbitration,  of  orderly  and  sensible  court  proceeding  in 
the  adjusting-  and  settling  of  differences  was  more 
thoroughly  believed  in  and  more  rapidly  growing. 

In  view  of  the  above  facts,  why  can  we  not  have  im- 
mediately, —  within  the  coming  two  or  three  years  — 
an  International  Court  of  Arbitration  composed  of  rep- 
resentatives, of  judges  duly  appointed  from  the  nations 
of  the  world,  with  powers  to  pass  upon  and  settle  all 
disputes  or  all  differences  that  may  arise  between  na- 
tions, using  the  present  joint  military  and  naval  forces, 
greatly  reduced,  as  the  police  force,  to  compel,  if  neces- 
sary, the  enforcement  of  its  decisions?  The  fact  of 
there  being  such  a  force  for  such  a  purpose  would  in  all 
probability  do  away  with  the  necessity  of  its  being  ever 
called  upon  for  action.  We  are  coming  to  just  such  a 
course.  The  question  is  —  why  not  come  to  it  now  ? 
Why  not  be  emancipated  from  this  enormous  and  thor- 
oughly senseless  expense  that  the  people  of  practically 
all  nations  are  being  constantly  taxed  to  meet?  Why 
not  now  bring  an  end  to  this  feverish,  foundationless 
bogy  of  fear  or  uncertainty  that  pervades  the  otherwise 
peaceful  status  of  this  world?  The  people  of  all  na- 
tions  would  welcome  such  a  deliverance.     We  wait 

"  What  one  battle-ship,  costs  would  establish  two  splendid 
agricultural  experiment  or  demonstration  farms  in  every  State 
in  the  Union,  and  I  will  guarantee  if  this  is  done  and  the  work 
intelligently  and  energetically  carried  on  that,  as  a  result  of  it, 
the  value  of  the  increased  product  of  the  nation's  farms  will, 
within  ten  years,  buy  and  pay  for  every  battle-ship  of  every 
navy  that  floats  on  salt  water  to-day." 


26o  TJic  Land  of  Living  Men 

simply  for  the  initiative  of  a  leader  in  power  progressive 
enough,  brave  enough,  devoted  enough  to  take  the  nec- 
essary steps.  We  are  ready  for  such  a  leader,  for  such 
a  course.  I  venture  that  the  people  of  no  nation  will 
stand  for  the  rejection  of  such  a  move  on  the  part  of 
those  in  power,  when  the  matter  is  wisely  formulated 
and  presented. 

The  following  splendid  utterance  of  President  Taft 
was  made  at  a  recent  memorable  gathering,  and  it 
shows  how  near  we  are  getting  to  the  landing:  "  Per- 
sonally I  do  not  see  why  matters  of  national  honour 
should  not  be  referred  to  a  court  of  arbitration  than 
matters  of  property  or  of  natural  proprietorship.  I 
know  that  is  going  further  than  most  men  are  willing 
to  go,  but  I  do  not  see  why  questions  of  honour  may  not 
be  submitted  to  a  tribunal  composed  of  men  of  honour 
who  understand  questions  of  national  honour,  to  abide 
by  their  decision,  as  well  as  any  other  questions  of  dif- 
ference arising  between  nations." 

In  a  recent  able  article  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie  says 
of  the  above :  "  Here  is  the  inspired  deliverance  before 
the  Peace  and  Arbitration  Society  in  New  York  on  the 
22d  of  March,  1910,  which  we  believe  will  remain 
memorable  for  untold  ages,  and  give  the  author  rank 
among  the  immortals  as  one  of  the  foremost  bene- 
factors of  his  race."  *  While  I  cannot  agree  that  the 
above  is  quite  true  as  regards  the  one  who  gives  utter- 

*  There  is  probably  no  man  whose  efforts  and  whose  influ- 
ence in  the  advancement  of  this  great  cause  have  been  greater 
than  have  those  of  Mr.  Carnegie.  It  is  one  of  the  three 
things  with  which  his  name  will  always  be  Hnked. 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  261 

ance  to  these  thoughts,  splendid  and  true  as  they  are  — 
for  they  are  after  all  the  thoughts  that  the  great  major- 
ity of  clear  thinking  and  sensible  people  everywhere  are 
now  thinking  —  I  can  agree  that  it  is  pre-eminently 
true  of  the  man  who  has  the  insight,  the  inspiration, 
the  ability  and  the  moral  fibre  sufficient  to  take  the 
necessary  steps  to  bring  about  the  material  embodiment 
of  such  thoughts,  plainly  speaking  —  the  establishment 
of  a  permanent  International  Court  of  Arbitration. 
Has  President  Taft  these  qualities?  We  do  not  yet 
know  that  he  has  not.  The  name  of  the  one  who  has, 
will  be  among  the  most  memorable  and  beloved  of  the 
entire  world's  history. 

The  great  nation  opens  its  ports  and  extends  a  wel- 
coming hand  to  the  poor,  to  the  economically  and 
politically  downtrodden,  as  well  as  to  the  more  well-to- 
do,  from  all  the  nations  of  the  world.  It  just  as  care- 
fully, on  the  other  hand,  closes  its  doors  to  the  criminal, 
and  to  all  other  types  of  the  undesirables  that  seek 
entrance,  or  that  are  dumped  upon  its  shores  by  the 
authorities  of  other  communities  and  nations. 

The  emigration  problem  of  this,  our  nation,  is  to-day 
one  of  the  most  vital  and  one  fraught  with  the  gravest 
possibilities  of  any  problem  that  we  are  at  present  called 
upon  to  face.  At  the  present  time  there  are  coming  into 
our  ports  each  twelve  months  over  a  million  emigrants. 
Large  numbers  of  these  are  most  desirable  and  will 
prove  of  great  value  to  the  nation.  Many  again,  are 
not  only  thoroughly  undesirable,  but  are  a  distinct 
menace  to  our  established  institutions  of  law  .and  order 
and  a  burden  to  the  community  and  the  state  in  which 


262  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

they  live.  Many  are  also  a  menace  to  the  lives  and  the 
property  of  individual  American  citizens,  and  are  cost- 
ing us  already  vast  sums  annually.  There  are  among- 
these  an  increasingly  large  number  that  come  for  the 
purpose  of  crime  and  plunder. 

Then  there  are  various  steamship  companies  that 
have  their  agents  by  the  hundreds  in  the  countries  from 
which  many  of  these  are  coming,  presenting  every  type 
of  inducement  to  those  among  whom  they  work  to 
come  to  America  —  their  sole  purpose  being  the  pas- 
sage money  that  w'ill  come  to  the  steamship  company, 
and  without  a  single  thought  or  care  as  to  the  detri- 
ment and  the  cost  that  large  numbers  of  them  will  be 
to  the  nation. 

We  should  extend  the  welcoming  hand  to  the  honest, 
thrifty  peasant  wanting  to  better  his  condition,  and 
especially  those  wanting  to  find  or  to  make  homes  here ; 
but  we  should  see  to  it,  and  at  once,  that  the  diseased, 
the  pauper,  the  criminal  is  not  dumped  upon  our  vari- 
ous communities  to  be  cared  for  or  to  be  dealt  with. 
The  proper  federal  authorities  should,  t^'ith  the  least 
possible  delay,  adopt  some  well-defined  policy  looking 
to  the  safeguarding  of  American  citizenship  and  Amer- 
ican institutions  in  the  face  of  this  now  thoroughly  well 
recognized  condition.  In  the  meantime  our  existing 
emigration  laws  should  be  enforced  to  the  limit,  —  m 
reference  to  these  thoroughly  undesirable  types,  that 
either  come  of  their  own  accord  or  that  are  sent  to  us. 

The  great  nation  again  is  the  nation  where  that  most 
important,  class  in  its  make-up,  that  upon  which  it  de- 
pends more  than  upon  any  other,  that  that  forms  so  to 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  263 

speak  the  backbone  of  its  org-anism  —  the  farming  com- 
munity—  grows  and  prospers,  and  has  its  interests 
looked  after  and  looks  after  its  own  interests  more  and 
more.  It  is  to  my  mind  the  most  natural  and  normal 
life  there  is,  and  the  one  —  as  a  general  statement  — 
that  is  or  that  can  be  made  the  most  happy,  and  the 
most  satisfactory,  and  in  honour  second  to  none. 

There  has  perhaps  never  been  a  better  outlook  for 
a  prosperous  and  interesting  country  life  than  at  the 
present  time.  The  great  advances  that  are  being  made 
possible  through  the  splendid  work  of  our  various 
federal  and  state  bureaus,  as  well  as  of  the  numerous 
agricultural  and  horticultural  schools  and  experiment 
stations,  the  convenience  and  added  comforts  of  con- 
tinually better  roads,  the  telephone,  the  free  rural  mail 
delivery,  the  now  rapidly  coming  parcels  post,  better 
facilities  for  marketing,  increasing  possibilities  of  prod- 
ucts as  well  as  better  prices  for  them  —  all  are  tending 
to  make  its  advantages  very  great.  Many  of  these, 
moreover,  are  still  in  their  infancy,  and  the  time  is  un- 
questionably coming  when  the  scientifically  tilled  and 
managed  farm  of  forty  acres,  will  yield  in  profit  what 
is  now  yielded  by  the  ordinary  farm  of  a  hundred  and 
sixty  acres.  The  farmers  of  the  future  will  also  be 
giving  more  attention  to  making  their  farms  —  espe- 
cially the  home,  its  grounds  and  immediate  surround- 
ings —  more  beautiful  and  attractive.  Farms  that 
to-day  are  anything  but  attractive  could  be  made  so 
thoroughly  so  with  a  little  time  and  attention  and  with 
but  little  actual  outlay,  that  the  boys  and  girls  could 
scarcely  be  driven  from  them.     In  addition  to  these 


264  The  Land  of  Living  Men. 

greater  gains,  such  a  course  would  pay  also  abundantly 
from  the  purely  business  standpoint. 

The  wiser  among  those  on  our  farms  will  also  see 
to  it  that  every  labor  saving  device  and  convenience 
is  instituted  in  and  about  the  home,  the  same  as  so  many 
others  are  on  the  farm  itself,  that  the  work  and  the  life 
of  the  wife  and  the  daughter  may  be  made  as  easy  and 
as  attractive  as  possible,  giving  more  abundant  oppor- 
tunities for  variety,  for  rest,  for  recreation  and  for  cul- 
ture.    It  will  pay  a  thousandfold  in  the  end. 

Then  with  more  co-operation  —  no  farm  or  rural 
community  should  be  without  some  strong  co-operative 
organization  in  its  midst  —  for  business,  for  social,  for 
educational,  for  civic  purposes,  the  possibilities  of  farm 
and  country  life  will  be  continually  increasing.  The 
influence  that  such  a  population  can  exert  upon  the 
political  life  of  the  nation  is  indeed  unmeasurable.* 

*  The  three  greatest  general  needs  of  country  life,  as  dis- 
covered by  President  Roosevelt's  Country  Life  Commission,  and 
as  summarized  by  him  in  a  special  message  to  Congress  are : 

"  First,  effective  co-operation  among  farmers,  to  put  them 
on  a  level  with  the  organized  interests  with  which  they  do 
business. 

"  Second,  a  new  kind  of  schools  in  the  country,  which  shall 
teach  the  children  as  much  outdoors  as  indoors,  and  perhaps 
more,  so  that  they  will  prepare  for  country  life,  and  not,  as  at 
present,  mainly  for  life  in  town. 

"  Third,  better  means  of  communication,  including  good 
roads  and  a  parcels  post,  which  the  country  people  are  every- 
where, and  rightly,  unanimous  in  demanding. 

"  To  these  may  well  be  added  better  sanitation ;  for  easily 
preventable  diseases  hold  several  million  country  people  in  the 
slavery  of  continuous  ill  health," 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  265 

There  is  already  a  growing-  tendency,  and  I  believe 
that  it  will  be  and  should  be  a  continually  increasing 
tendency,  for  young  men  of  ability  and  ambition  to 
remain  on  the  farm,  instead  of  leaving  it  for  supposedly 
superior  callings  —  that  is,  unless  the  inclination  or  the 
aptitude  lies  so  pronouncedly  along  a  different  line  as 
to  make  another  course  abundantly  advisable. 

Go  then  to  the  school,  the  college,  the  university,  the 
agricultural,  the  horticultural  school,  and  with  this 
superior  equipment,  go  back  to  conduct  a  superior 
type  of  farm.  The  outlet  for  your  abilities  will  be  equal 
to  those  abilities,  both  there  and  as  occasion  may  arise. 

The  possibilities  of  soil  cultivation  and  all  things  al- 
lied to  it  under  more  careful,  more  scientific,  intensive 
methods,  are  hardly  even  dreamed  of  to-day,  notwith- 
standing the  great  strides  that  have  been  made  during 
the  past  dozen  years  or  so. 

And  our  legislative  halls,  State  and  National,  have 
never  called  so  loudly  as  they  are  calling  to-day  for 
men  of  such  make-up  as  will  yet  come  to  them  from 
these  superior  types  of  farms.  Nothing,  to  my  mind, 
could  contribute  more  abundantly  to  the  welfare  of  the 
country  than  the  coming  of  increasingly  large  numbers 
of  these  into  our  legislative  halls.  There  is  perhaps  no 
class  that  has  suffered  economically  more  from  special 
privilege  and  maladministration,  in  short  —  injustice  — 
during  the  past  two  or  three  decades.  In  no  way 
could  these  abuses  be  more  effectively  ended.  In  no 
way  could  a  better  balance  be  secured  and  preserved  in 
all  matters  of  legislative  policy  and  in  all  matters  of 
national  conduct, 


266  The  Laud  of  Living  Men 

May  there  be  more  organization,  an  ever  increasing 
intelligence,  more  interest  in  public  affairs,  and  an  ever 
greater  determination  to  have  a  more  equal  share  in  the 
latter,  on  the  part  of  this,  the  most  important  of  our 
citizenship. 

The  great  nation  is  again  the  nation  in  which  the  man 
of  great  natural  executive  or  financial  ability  finds  con- 
tentment in  a  smaller  amount  of  possessions  for  him- 
self, and  the  larger  contentment  and  satisfaction  and 
joy  in  using  that  unusual  ability  in  the  service  of,  for 
the  benefit  of,  his  city,  his  state,  the  nation.  The  wonder 
is  that  more  are  not  doing  this  already.  What  an  in- 
fluence a  few  such  men  could  have,  what  results  they 
could  accomplish,  what  real  riches  they  could  bring  into 
their  lives  through  the  riches  they  would  bring  into  the 
lives  of  multitudes  —  What  gratitude  would  go  to 
them !     What  names  !     What  memories ! 

As  men  continue  to  see  the  small  satisfaction  there 
is  in  the  possession  of  great  ability  of  this  nature,  and 
in  the  possession  of  great  wealth,  when  divorced  from 
an  adequate  or  even  from  an  abundant  connection  zvith 
the  interests  and  the  zvclfare  of  their  fclloiv-men,  and 
as  they  catch  the  undying  truth  of  the  great  law  of  life 
as  enunciated  by  One  who  though  He  had  not  even 
where  to  lay  His  head  was  greater  than  them  all  —  He 
that  is  greatest  among  you  shall  be  your  servant  — 
then  they  in  company  with  all  men  will  be  the  gainers. 
Think  what  could  be  accomplished  in  the  nation  along 
the  lines  we  have  been  considering  in  this  little  volume 
by  a  company  of  such  men  devoted  to  such  ends.  A 
change  is  coming  and  very  rapidly.     The  time  has  al- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  267 

ready  arrived  when  we  will  no  longer  look  upon  the 
possession  of  mere  wealth  or  the  ability  to  get  it  as  de- 
serving of  any  special  distinction,  and  especially  ivhen 
the  means  adopted  in  its  acquirement  are  other  than 
those  of  absolute  honour  and  rectitude. 

How  significant  are  the  following  observations  from 
the  New  York  Outlook: 

"  Those  who  have  fallen  most  completely  under  the 
spell  of  fortune-hunting,  and  have  been  consumed  by 
the  fever  of  a  pursuit  which  dries  up  the  very  sources 
of  spiritual  life,  can  no  longer  be  blind  to  the  fact  that 
when  great  wealth  ceases  to  be  associated  with  char- 
acter, honour,  genius,  or  public  respect,  it  is  a  very 
shabby  substitute  for  the  thing  men  once  held  it  to  be. 
There  are  hosts  of  honourable  men  of  wealth,  and 
there  are  large  fortunes  which  have  been  honourably 
made ;  but  so  much  brutal  indifference  to  the  rights  of 
others,  so  much  tyrannical  use  of  power,  so  much  arbi- 
trary employment  of  privilege  without  a  touch  of 
genius,  so  much  cynical  indifference  to  human  ties  of 
all  kinds,  so  much  vulgar  greed,  have  come  to  light, 
.  .  .  that  the  lustre  has  very  largely  gone  and  wealth, 
as  a  supreme  prize  of  life,  has  immensely  lost  in 
attractive  power.  There  are  hosts  of  young  men  who 
are  ambitious  to  be  rich,  but  who  are  not  willing  to 
accept  wealth  on  such  terms ;  the  price  is  too  great, 
the   bargain    too   hard." 

Men  of  exceptional  executive  and  financial  ability, 
raise  yourselves  to  the  standing-point  of  real  great- 
ness and  use  these  abilities  to  noble  purposes  and  to 
undying  ends  instead  of  piling  heaps  of  things  together 


268  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

that  you  '11  soon  have  to  leave  and  that  may  do  those 
to  whom  they  will  go  more  harm  than  good.  The 
times  are  changing,  mankind  is  advancing  and  as- 
cending to  higher  standing  places,  and  it  will  be  but 
a  short  time  when  your  position  if  maintained  as  at 
present  will  be  a  very  ordinary  one  or  even  a  very 
low  one  in  the  public  esteem  —  and  so  will  be  your 
memories. 

The  Bishop  of  Exeter  voices  a  well-nigh  universal 
human  cry  at  present  when  he  says: 

Give  us  men ! 

Strong  and  stalwart  ones : 
Men  whom  highest  hope  inspires. 
Men  whom  purest  honour  fires, 
Men  who  trample  Self  beneath  them, 
Men  who  make  their  country  wreathe  them 

As  her  noble  sons, 

Worthy  of  their  sires, 
Men  who  never  shame  their  mothers, 
Men  who  never  fail  their  brothers, 
True,  however  false  are  others: 

Give  us  Men  —  I  say  again, 
Give  us  Men! 


X 

THE   LIFE    OF    THE    HIGHER    BEAUTY    AND 
POWER  —  INDIVIDUAL  —  NA  TIONAL 

^^^^O  be  at  peace.  To  be  happy.  To  live  in 
^iftf  contentment.  To  have  a  satisfying  and 
^mI^  :  harmonious  —  a  successful  life.  This  echoes 
i^^^^K  the  longing  of  perhaps  every  normal  per- 
son. The  fact  that  it  so  echoes  a  universal  longing, 
indicates,  to  me  at  least,  that  it  should  be  the  natural, 
the  normal  life. 

In  order  to  live  a  harmonious  life  there  must  be 
something  to  be  in  harmony  with ;  and  here  as  I  view 
it  is  the  great  secret  of  life  and  its  successful  and 
satisfactory  fulfilment. 

That  there  is  a  Spirit  of  intelligence  and  of  love  in 
the  universe,  no  normally  constituted  mind,  and  one 
that  has  lived  at  all  near  the  higher  revelations  that 
may  have  come  to  it,  can  for  a  moment  doubt.  There  is 
a  Power,  beneficent  if  worked  in  harmony  with,  that 
pervades  and  through  the  channel  of  great  and  definite 
systems  of  law  governs  the  universe  and  all  that  is  in 
it.  Every  decade  we  are  discovering  new  laws  and 
forces,  and  the  latter  seem  to  be  all  the  time  finer  and 
finer  in  their  nature.  This  is  perhaps  on  account  of 
the  process  of  evolution,  so  developing,  so  unfolding 
us,  that  we  are  getting  nearer  and  nearer  to  the  es- 
sence, the  inner  nature  —  the  soul  of  things. 

269 


2/0  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

What  was  the  actual  beginning  of  things  no  man 
knows.  Nor  is  it  essential  or  important  that  we  do 
know.  But  in  the  beginning,  as  now,  was  Being,  self- 
existent  and  all-pervading  —  the  Spirit  of  Infinite  Life 
and  Power  that  is  back  of  all,  working  in  and  through 
all,  the  source,  the  Hfe  of  all.  This  seems  to  be  a  self- 
evident  fact  —  Infinite  Being  projecting  itself  into  ex- 
istence —  therefore  the  spirit,  the  substance,  the  life  of 
all  there  is. 

Various  terms  or  names  are  used  by  different 
minds ;  but  to  me  this  Infinite  Being  is  God.  To  know 
this  as  our  source,  the  very  essence  of  our  being, 
and  from  which  or  from  whom  we  can  be  cut  off,  can 
separate  ourselves,  only  to  our  detriment,  is  to  recog- 
nize ourselves  as  spiritual  beings ;  it  is  to  be  born  into 
the  spiritual  life,  and  the  spiritual  life  is  the  life  eternal. 
Thus  we  come  to  know  God  in  the  degree  that  we 
realize  that  in  Him  we  live  and  move  and  have  our 
being.  In  the  degree  that  we  live  in  the  realization 
of  this  truth,  does  this  spirit  of  Infinite  Life  and 
Power  reveal  itself  to  our  consciousness  more  and 
more,  and  it  is  in  this  way  that  we  grow  and  unfold 
in  the  spiritual  life. 

It  is  through  great  systems  of  law,  definite  and  im- 
mutable, that  God  or  Infinite  Being  works.  To  know 
these  laws,  and  to  live,  to  work  in  harmony  with  them 
brings  peace  and  harmony ;  wilfully  to  violate  them 
brings  inharmony  and  struggle  and  suffering.  They 
all  work  together  for  good.  To  live  in  harmony  with 
them  can  bring  us  only  good.  To  fail  to  recognize  or" 
wilfully  to  violate  them  brings  necessarily  the  opposite 


TJic  Land  of  Living  Men  271 

of  good,  namely  evil.  Evil  has  its  origin  properly 
speaking  not  in  God,  but  from  a  violation  of  the  laws, 
shall  we  say,  the  ordinances  of  God. 

To  realize  that  in  essence,  though  not  in  degree, 
we  are  one  with  the  life  of  God,  and  then  to  open  our- 
selves, our  minds  and  our  hearts,  so  that  a  continually 
increasing  degree  of  the  God  life  can  manifest  itself 
to  and  through  us,  is  to  understand  more  and  more 
and  to  come  into  a  continually  greater  harmony  with, 
the  laws  under  which  we  live  and  which  permeate  and 
rule  in  the  universe  with  an  unchangeable  precision. 
It  is  through  our  non-recognition  of  the  life  that  is  in 
us  and  the  laws  by  which  all  things  are  governed,  in 
other  words,  living  out  of  harmony  with  the  laws 
under  which  it  is  decreed  we  must  live,  that  inhar- 
mony  and  evil  with  its  consequent  pain  and  suffering 
and  despair  enters  into  our  lives.  There  are  those 
who  have  lived  so  fully  in  the  realization  of  their  es- 
sential oneness  with  the  Divine  Life,  that  their  lives 
here  have  been  almost  a  continual  song  of  peace  and 
thanksgiving. 

As  individuals  —  expressions  of  Being  projected 
into  existence  —  we  are  given  the  power  of  choice. 
We  can  choose  to  open  ourselves  so  fully  to  the  reali- 
zation of  the  Source  of  our  life,  and  open  ourselves  so 
fully  to  its  influx,  that  we  will  find  the  attributes  of 
this  life  manifesting,  incarnating  themselves  more  and 
more  in  our  lives,  so  that  in  time  we  take  on  more  and 
more  the  wisdom,  the  insight  and  the  powers  of  this 
Life.  In  this  way  we  are  gradually  changed  from  the 
natural  to  the  spiritual,  from  earth-men  to  God-men, 


272  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

thus  fulfilling-  the  undoubted  purpose  of  our  being  — 
divine  self-realization,  and  the  returning  to  that  from 
which  we  came. 

Coming  as  babes,  returning  as  fully  grown  spiritual 
beings,  gaining  our  experience  in  contact  with  this 
material  world  through  the  agency  of  the  material 
body,  and  for  some  purpose  of  which  we  do  not  yet 
know  but  that  shall  be  revealed  to  us  in  due  process 
of  time.  What  it  is,  cannot  concern  us  materially  now. 
This  zvill  come  zvhen  zve  are  ready  for  it.  To  know 
the  laws  under  which  we  are  living  and  to  bring  our 
lives  into  an  ever  completer  harmony  with  them,  is 
what  concerns  us  now.  Step  by  step,  in  this,  as  in  all 
things. 

But  to  know  God's  laws  is  first  to  know  the  life  of 
God  in  us.  To  live  then  in  harmony  with  these  laws 
and  thus  to  reap  the  results  that  follow  naturally  and 
unerringly  from  this  course,  is  the  part  of  the  wise. 
To  separate  ourselves  from  the  life  of  God,  to  lose 
therefore  the  guiding  wisdom  that  is  its  attribute,  to 
fail  to  live  in  harmony  with  these  laws,  and  to  be  bat- 
tered and  buffeted  about  as  is  invariably  the  result  of 
the  violation  of  law,  until  through  this  hard  process 
we  are  finally  driven  into  harmony  with  the  laws  of 
God,  is  the  part  of  the  unwise,  the  fool. 

The  laws  will  have  obedience,  and  there  has  never 
been  a  man  or  a  woman  powerful  enough  or  rich 
enough  or  unique  enough  to  violate  them  without 
suffering  sooner  or  later  the  inevitable  results.  Many 
have  sought  to  do  so  but  have  learned  their  lesson  in 
sorrow,  in  anguish,  in  humiliation.    We  go  voluntarily 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  273 

and  of  our  own  accord,  or  we  are  pushed  and  taught 
through  suffering.  God  will  have  obedience.  To  know 
God  is  to  know  His  laws;  for  His  laws  are  written 
in  the  heart  of  man. 

By  dwelling  continually  in  this  life  of  God  we  come 
into  that  condition  where  we  are  led  more  and  more 
by  Divine  guidance,  where  the  Divine  wisdom  and 
power  and  life  so  manifest  and  illumine  our  being, 
and  through  this  our  understanding,  that  we  know 
more  and  more  to  do  the  right  thing  at  the  right  time ; 
and  for  such,  to  know  is  to  do.* 

While  the  end  of  life  is  not  attained  through  intellec- 
tual processes  alone,  the  mind,  the  intellect  neverthe- 
less is  a  means  to  this  end.  It  is  through  the  mind  that 
the  connection  is  made  between  the  human  and  the 
Divine.  It  is  through  thought  operating  through  the 
channel  of  the  mind  that  we  are  able  to  realize  and 
keep  our  connection  with  Infinite  Being,  our  source. 
It  is  by  virtue  of  the  mind,  working  through  the 
brain,  that  we  are  connected  with  the  material,  physi- 
cal universe.  The  body  is  material,  physical.  Every 
particle  of  it,  through  the  food  we  take,  is  from  the 
earth  and  the  air,  and  to  the  earth  and  the  air  every 
particle  of  it  finally  returns. 

To  realize  that  the  body  is  not  the  self,  but  the  in- 
strument by  which  the  self  is  temporarily  related  to 

*  For  suggestions  as  to  the  method  of  entering  into  this 
higher  realization,  as  also  for  a  much  fuller  portrayal  of  its 
results  in  everyday  life,  the  reader  is  directed  to  the  volume 
by  the  same  author  entitled,  "  In  Tune  with  the  Infinite,  or, 
Fullness  of  Peace,  Power,  and  Plenty." 


274  The  Land  of  Lk'ing  Men 

and  made  able  to  live  in  a  material  world  for  the  pur- 
pose of  experience,  growth,  development,  is  a  great  aid 
in  arriving  at  the  realities  of  life.  The  folly  then  of 
giving  supreme  attention  to  it,  and  the  things  that 
pertain  to  it.  To  give  it  sufficient  attention  to  en- 
able it  to  become  the  clearest,  the  soundest,  the  most 
perfect  instntment,  that  it  can  be  made  and  kept  for  the 
real  self  to  use,  is  the  part  of  wisdom,  for  it  is  the  true 
middle  ground. 

Now,  why  this,  I  hear  it  asked,  in  a  book  of  this 
nature?  In  order  to  get  a  basis  in  religion,  in  phi- 
losophy, in  reality,  for  life,  for  the  individual  life ;  and 
as  is  the  individual  life  so  is  the  national  life,  never 
higher,  never  lower.  As  Dr.  Patton,  formerly  presi- 
dent of  Princeton  University,  once  said  to  a  class  of 
young  graduates: 

"  Religion  is  the  goal  of  culture,  and  the  educated 
man  must  stand  in  some  relation  to  God.  He  must 
have  some  philosophy  of  human  life,  some  theory  of 
society."  And  as  Milton  has  said :  "  There  is  nothing 
that  makes  men  rich  and  strong  but  that  which  they 
carry  inside  of  them.  Wealth  is  of  the  heart,  not  of  the 
hand."  And  as  Mazzini  once  said :  "  Where  there  is 
no  vision  the  people  perish." 

The  chase  for  the  material  has  of  late  years  become 
so  great  and  so  absorbing,  whether  by  fair  means  or 
foul,  that  it  has  become  one  of  the  notorious  features 
or  characteristics  of  the  time.  And  while  I  believe  the 
heart  of  the  people  and  the  heart  of  the  nation  is  sound, 
by  virtue  of  the  vastly  superior  numbers  of  splendid, 
honest,    unpurchasable    and    high-minded    men    and 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  275 

women  among  us,  both  old  and  young,  a  strong  materi- 
alistic tendency  is  nevertheless  a  marked  characteristic 
of  the  time.  As  there  is  perhaps  no  greater  truth  in 
connection  with  human  life  than  —  As  a  man  thinketh 
in  his  heart  so  is  he,  and  also,  that  we  grow  into  the 
likeness  of  those  things  we  most  habitually  contem- 
plate, also,  that  all  Hfe  is  from  within  out,  for  as  is  the 
inner,  so  always  and  necessarily  will  be  the  outer,  it 
becomes  clearly  apparent  how  essential  it  is  that  the 
right  centre  or  basis  of  Hfe  be  established. 

We  hear  it  often  said,  and  said  in  the  most  well- 
meaning  way,  that  the  physical,  the  material,  is  the 
basis  of  life.  Now  I  would  put  it  in  another  way,  a 
safer  and  I  think  a  truer  way.  The  spiritual  is  the  basis 
and  the  end  of  life,  and  the  physical,  the  material,  is  the 
channel  through  which  it  manifests  and  works  and  un- 
folds and  masters.  The  latter  is  not  to  be  despised  or 
slighted,  but  to  be  used,  to  be  wisely  used,  but  to  be 
subordinated  to  its  proper  place.  Thus  it  becomes  a 
great  blessing  and  helper  rather  than  a  hindrance  and  a 
curse. 

To  have  an  abundance  of  the  world's  goods  is  good 
if  rightly  used ;  but  to  make  the  accumulation  of  ma- 
terial things  the  chief  object  of  life  can  end  only  in 
disappointment.  Such  have  but  a  pinched  and  stunted 
life  which  is  unsatisfactory  and  empty  of  joy  to  them- 
selves, and,  except  by  way  of  warning,  is  of  but  little  if 
any  value  to  the  world. 

Each  one  must  find  a  centre  for  life  from  which  all 
radiates,  or,  putting  it  in  another  way,  a  basis,  a  founda- 
tion upon  which  all  else  is  built.    Such  a  centre  or  such 


276  The  Land  of  Lk'ing  Men 

a  basis,  one  that  is  true  and  satisfactory,  is  earnestly- 
longed  for  by  myriads  of  people.  An  instinct  for  the 
religious  life  is  born  in  practically  every  human  soul. 

So  many  great  chunks,  as  the  years  have  passed,  have 
fallen  away  from  our  theological  systems,  and  so 
many  are  still  continually  falling  away  from  them, 
that  it  is  hard  or  well-nigh  impossible  for  an  earnest, 
mentally  honest  man  to  find  any  satisfactory  or  even  ac- 
ceptable basis  for  the  religious  life  there.  Such  in  com- 
mon with  all  others  will  find  that  the  uniform  teaching 
of  all  the  most  inspired  teachers  in  the  world's  history, 
whatever  the  religion  or  system  of  belief  has  been,  is 
that  the  essence,  the  substance  of  all  true  religion  is 
the  Consciousness  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man.  The  ra- 
tional basis  for  this  I  have  endeavored  to  point  out  in 
the  early  pages  of  this  chapter.  "  In  Him  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being."  In  what  a  homely,  splen- 
did way  John  Tauler  has  put  it  in  the  following : 

"  I  have  a  power  in  my  soul  which  enables  me  to 
perceive  God :  I  am  as  certain  as  that  I  live  that  nothing 
is  so  near  to  me  as  God.  He  is  nearer  to  me  than  I 
am  to  myself.  It  is  part  of  His  very  essence  that  He 
should  be  nigh  and  present  to  me.  .  .  .  And  a 
man  is  more  blessed  or  less  blessed  in  the  same  measure 
as  he  is  aware  of  the  presence  of  God." 

"  God  made  us  for  Himself,  and  our  hearts  are  rest- 
less until  they  repose  in  Him,"  was  St.  Augustine's 
way  of  putting  it.  "  The  only  death  to  be  feared 
is  unconsciousness  of  the  presence  of  God,"  said 
Paracelsus. 

"  That  the  Divine  Life  and  Energy  actually  lives  in 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  277 

us  is  inseparable  from  religion,"  was  the  keynote  to 
the  philosophy  of  that  most  spiritual  of  philosophers, 
Fichte.  "  An  insight  into  the  absolute  unity  of  the  Hu- 
man Existence  with  the  Divine  is  certainly  the  pro- 
foundest  knowledge  that  man  can  attain,"  said  he 
again. 

It  was  the  most  inspired  who  has  yet  lived  among 
us  who  said :  "  Neither  shall  they  say,  Lo  here !  or, 
Lo  there!  for,  behold  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  within 
you."  And  again :  "  Seek  ye  first  the  Kingdom  of 
God,  and  His  righteousness,  and  all  these  things  shall 
be  added  unto  you."  It  was  He  who  gave  the  sub- 
stance of  the  moral  law  and  therefore  the  essence  of 
religion  as  —  Love  to  God  and  love  to  the  fellow-man. 

To  me,  love  to  Grod  is  this  dwelling  continually  in  the 
conscious  living  realization  of  the  essential  oneness  of 
our  life  with  the  Divine  Lifg  —  seeking  to  have  no  other 
will  than  that  the  Divine  will  may  manifest  to  and 
may  work  through  us.  How  significant  then  —  "  Thou 
wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace,  whose  mind  is  stayed 
on  Thee,"  and  also,  "  In  all  thy  ways  acknowledge  Him 
and  He  shall  direct  thy  paths."  How  truly  in  the  light 
of  this  truth  does  Fichte  say  that  the  expression  of  the 
constant  mind  of  the  truly  religious  man  is  this  prayer : 
"  Lord !  let  but  Thy  will  be  done,  then  is  mine  also  done ; 
for  I  have  no  other  will  than  this  —  that  Thy  will  be 
done."  And  how  thoroughly  in  keeping  with  —  "  Thou 
wilt  keep  him  in  perfect  peace,  whose  mind  is  stayed  on 
Thee,"  is  his  thought  in  the  following: 

"  Whatever  comes  to  pass  around  him,  nothing  ap- 
pears to  him   strange  or  unaccountable  —  he  knows 


2/8  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

assuredly,  whether  he  understand  it  or  not,  that  it  is  in 
God's  World,  and  that  there  nothing  can  be  that  does 
not  directly  tend  to  good.  In  him  there  is  no  fear  for 
the  future,  for  the  absolute  fountain  of  all  blessedness 
eternally  bears  him  on  towards  it ;  no  sorrow  for  the 
past,  for  in  so  far  as  he  was  not  in  God  he  was  nothing, 
and  this  is  now  at  an  end,  and  since  he  has  dwelt  in  God 
he  has  been  born  into  light ;  while  in  so  far  as  he  was  in 
God,  that  which  he  has  done  is  assuredly  right  and 
good.  .  .  .  His  whole  outward  existence  flows  forth, 
softly  and  gently,  from  his  Inward  Being,  and  issues 
out  into  Reality  without  difficulty  or  hindrance." 

Love  to  the  fellow-man  is  the  realization  of  the  fact 
that  we  are  all  parts  of  the  one  great  whole,  that  the 
source  and  essence  of  life  in  each  is  essentially  the  same, 
that  love  is  the  established  law  of  life,  and  that  the  law 
will  have  obedience  or  it  wili  strike  its  punishment  upon 
all  who  do  violence  to  it. 

**  He  that  loveth  not  his  brother,  abideth  in  death," 
said  the  Master  Teacher,  and  this  is  simply  the  enun- 
ciation of  the  law  that's  written  deep  in  the  universe 
and  that  is  immutable  in  its  workings. 

"  All  beings  are  the  fruits  of  one  tree,  the  leaves  of 
one  branch,  the  drops  of  one  sea.  Honour  is  for  him 
who  loveth  men,  not  for  him  who  loveth  his  own," 
says  the  Persian. 

Truly  we  are  all  parts  of  the  one  great  whole,  and  one 
can't  suffer  or  have  injustice  done  him  without  all 
sharing  in  that  suffering  and  none  more  than  the  author 
of  that  injustice. 

It  was  by  virtue  of  His  perceiving  so  clearly  the  laws 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  279 

in  relation  to  human  life  that  are  so  immutable  in  their 
workings,  that  enabled  and  prompted  Jesus  to  give 
anew  to  the  world  an  epitome  of  the  laws  relating  to 
all  human  relations  when  He  said,  "  And  as  ye  would 
that  men  should  do  to  you,  do  ye  also  to  them  likewise." 
It  is  what  is  ordinarily  termed  the  Golden  Rule.  I 
have  never  seen  any  wiser  or  more  suggestive  com- 
mentary upon  it  than  the  following,  by  the  late  Hon. 
Samuel  Milton  Jones  :  * 

"  As  I  view  it,  the  Gblden  Rule  is  the  supreme  law  of 
life.  It  may  be  paraphrased  this  way :  As  you  do  unto 
others,  others  will  do  unto  you.  What  I  give,  I  get. 
If  I  love  you  really  and  truly  and  actively  love  you, 
you  are  as  sure  to  love  me  in  return  as  the  earth  is  sure 

*  Mayor  Jones  of  Toledo  was  to  my  mind  one  of  the  most 
significant  men  politically  that  our  country  has  yet  known.  A 
man  who  believed  in  actually  adopting  the  law  of  life  as  enun- 
ciated in  the  Golden  Rule  as  a  basis  for  personal  action  and 
for  the  administration  of  public  affairs.  A  man  who  used 
public  office  only  for  the  highest  public  good.  A  man  whom 
the  people  therefore  so  trusted  that,  running  as  an  independ- 
ent candidate  against  the  candidates  of  the  two  dominant 
political  parties,  he  was  able  to  poll  a  vote  of  nearly  17,000 
out  of  a  total  voting  number  of  24,000.  It  is  rather  signifi- 
cant, isn't  it?  —  and  this  against  the  combined  and  determined 
efforts  of  the  machines  of  both  political  parties,  both  local  and 
state,  and  in  face  of  the  united  opposition  of  all  the  news- 
papers and  corporations  in  the  city,  and  not  a  few  of  the 
"  eminently  respectable  people."  So  far  as  his  influence  upon 
the  political  future  is  concerned,  as  it  will  be,  even  as  it  is 
being  already,  carried  into  activity  by  younger  men  who  are 
coming  into  the  field  of  political  action,-  it  is  unquestionably 
true  that  no  greater  or  more  valuable  man  has  ever  come  from 
or  been  associated  with  the  State  of  Ohio. 


28o  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

to  be  warmed  by  the  rays  of  the  midsummer  sun.  If  I 
hate  you,  illtreat  you  and  abuse  you,  I  am  equally  cer- 
tain to  arouse  the  same  kind  of  antagonism  towards  me, 
unless  the  Divine  nature  is  so  developed  that  it  is  domi- 
nant in  you,  and  you  have  learned  to  love  your  enemies. 
What  can  be  plainer?  The  Golden  Rule  is  the  law  of 
action  and  reaction  in  the  field  of  morals,  just  as  defi- 
nite, just  as  certain  here  as  the  law  is  definite  and  cer- 
tain in  the  domain  of  physics. 

"  I  think  the  confusion  with  respect  to  the  Golden 
Rule  arises  from  the  different  conceptions  that  we  have 
of  the  word  love.  I  use  the  word  love  as  synonymous 
with  reason,  and  so  when  I  speak  of  doing  the  loving 
thing,  I  mean  the  reasonable  thing.  When  I  speak  of 
dealing  with  my  fellow-men  in  an  unreasonable  way,  I 
mean  an  unloving  way.  The  terms. are  interchangeable 
absolutely.  The  reason  why  we  know  so  little  about 
the  Golden  Rule  is  because  we  have  not  practised  it." 

Yes,  what  we  term  the  Golden  Rule  is  an  absolute 
law  of  life,  and  it  will  have  obedience  through  the  joy, 
and  therefore  the  gain  it  brings  into  our  lives  if  we 
observe  it,  or  it  will  have  obedience  by  the  pain  and 
the  blankness  it  drives  into  our  lives  if  we  violate  it. 

As  we  give  to  the  world  so  the  world  gives  back  to  us. 
Thoughts  are  forces,  like  inspires  like  and  like  creates 
like.  If  I  give  love  I  inspire  and  receive  love  in  re- 
turn. If  I  give  hatred  I  inspire  and  I  receive  hatred. 
The  wise  man  loves ;  only  the  ignorant,  the  selfish,  the 
fool,  hates. 

It  is  the  man  who  loves  and  serves  who  has  solved 
the  riddle  of  life,  for  into  his  life  comes  the  fulness, 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  281 

the  satisfaction,  the  peace  and  the  joy  that  the  Law 
decrees.    He  it  is  who  is  the  wise  man. 

The  man  who  has  no  sense  of  service  to  his  fellow- 
man,  whose  idea  is  primarily  gain  for  himself,  whether 
honourable  or  dishonourable,  is  the  supreme  fool  in  life, 
by  virtue  of  his  ignorance  leading  him  into  the  violation 
of  a  law  that  condemns  him  to  a  pinched,  a  stunted, 
sunless,  joyless  life. 

"  If  the  gatherer  gathers  too  much,"  says  Emerson, 
"  nature  takes  out  of  the  man  what  she  puts  into  his 
chest;  swells  the  state  but  kills  the  owner.  Nature 
hates  m.onopolies  and  exceptions." 

We  do  well  when  we  remember  this  —  one  can 
never  do  an  injury  to  another  without  in  some  form 
or  another  suffering  for  that  injury  himself.  Why?  It 
is  so  written  in  the  Law  of  the  Universe,  that's  all.  And 
we  likewise  do  well  to  remember  —  one  can  never  do 
a  real  loving,  unselfish,  kindly  act  without  deriving  a 
benefit  from  such  act  himself ;  and  if  at  any  time  there 
are  apparent  exceptions  to  this  it  is,  I  believe,  because 
our  limited  vision  does  not  enable  us  to  see  the  total 
relationship  of  human  actions. 

"  No  man  in  the  world  ever  attempted  to  wrong 
another  without  being  injured  in  return, —  some  way, 
somehow,  sometime.  The  only  weapon  of  offence  that 
nature  seems  to  recognize  is  the  boomerang.  Nature 
keeps  her  books  admirably ;  she  puts  down  every  item, 
she  closes  all  accounts  finally,  but  she  does  not  always 
balance  them  at  the  end  of  the  month."  * 

*  From  that  excellent  little  booklet  "  The  Majesty  of  Calm- 
ness," by  William  George  Jordan. 


282  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

As  the  life  of  a  man  is  of  more  value  to  him  than  the 
house  in  which  he  lives,  so  the  possession  and  growth 
of  the  faculties  that  enable  him  to  enjoy  the  things  that 
pertain  to  and  that  spring  from  the  inner  life,  are  of 
more  value  to  him  by  way  of  bringing  him  happiness 
and  contentment  than  any  possible  accumulation  of 
material  things.  Wealth  is  good  —  as  a  means  to  com- 
fort ;  good  as  a  servant,  never  as  a  master ;  good  as  a 
feature,  never  as  the  chief  end  of  life. 

One  of  the  most  pitiable  sights  that  I  know  is  the 
way  some  very  rich  men  die.  Let  the  following  serve 
as  the  type  of  many.  A  man  has  made  gain  —  money- 
getting —  the  chief  object  of  his  life.  In  time,  shall 
we  say  through  nature's  abhorrence  of  abnormalities, 
the  greed  for  gain  becomes  his  master  and  dries 
up  his  very  powers  of  enjoyment  of  the  finer  things 
in  life.  He  accumulates  a  hundred  million,  with  all 
the  care  and  worry  that  keeping  this  invested  to  the 
best  advantage  means.  He  is  of  but  little  use  to  the 
world,  and  through  the  dwarfing  of  the  finer  qualities 
of  his  life,  and  the  drying  up  of  his  powers  of  enjoy- 
ment, he  has  also  become  so  to  himself.  He  dies.  Three 
months  after  he  has  gone  his  name  is  scarcely  ever 
heard,  except  perhaps  in  some  long-drawn-out  or  bit- 
terly fought  will  contest.  His  end  is  like  that  of  a  dog. 
In  short,  many  a  dog,  faithful  and  intelligent  and  useful, 
has  been  more  genuinely  mourned  and  longer  and  more 
gratefully  remembered.  And  then  if  it  is  true,  as  I  be- 
lieve it  must  be,  that  we  commence  in  the  other  form  of 
life  exactly  where  we  leave  ofif  here,  taking  with  us  only 
what   wc  have  gained  by  way  of  soul  growth  and 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  283 

spiritual  unfoldment,  but  not  one  cent  —  not  one  cent  — 
and  having-,  moreover,  no  further  control  over  any  ma- 
terial possessions,  how  poor,  how  pitiably  poor  is  such 
a  life.  Contrast  it  with  the  following  as  an  ideal  and  a 
purpose  for  a  life : 

"  I  am  primarily  engaged  to  myself  to  be  a  public 
servant  of  all  the  Gods,  to  demonstrate  to  all  men  there 
is  good-will  and  intelligence  at  the  heart  of  things  and 
ever  higher  and  yet  higher  leadings.  These  are  my 
engagements.  If  there  be  power  in  good  intentions, 
in  fidelity,  and  in  toil,  the  north  wind  shall  be  purer, 
the  stars  in  heaven  shall  glow  with  a  kindlier  beam 
that  I  have  lived." 

And  what  a  life  was  the  life  of  this  man  Emerson 
who  deliberately  chose  this  as  his  part.  And  what  an  in- 
fluence while  he  lived,  and  truly  for  all  time  to  conic. 
Not  three  months,  nor  three  centuries  can  forget  his 
name  or  cease  to  bless  his  memory. 

Another,  in  whom  success  in  the  sense  of  excessive 
gain  develops  pride  and  an  itchiness  for  ostentatious 
show,  builds  a  mansion  —  a  home  ?  costing  four  million 
dollars,  thinking  also  that  it  will  be  a  sort  of  monument 
to,  a  reminder  of,  himself.  Within  fifty  years,  or  within 
even  a  much  shorter  period  of  time,  it  may  be  the  pos- 
session of  a  Barnum  and  the  home  of  a  good  up-to-date 
circus.  Such  is  the  security  of  a  man's  hold  upon 
material  possessions. 

And  how  few  seem  to  be  able  to  stand  success 
and  remain  good,  healthy,  sensible,  normal  men.  It 
seems  strange  that  so  seldom  can  a  man  become  success- 
ful as  to  either  wealth  or  power  without  taking  on, 


284  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

mentally  at  least,  the  strut  of  the  turkey-cock.  A  really 
great  man,  however,  is  always  immune  from  this  affec- 
tion.   It  is  rather  as  Pope  said : 

Of  all  the  causes  which  conspire  to  blind 
Man's  erring  judgment,  and  mislead  the  mind, 
What  the  weak  head  with  strongest  bias  rules, 
Is  Pride  —  that  never- failing  vice  of  fools. 

The  law  seems  to  be  absolute  in  that  "  whosoever  shall 
exalt  himself  shall  be  abased ;  and  he  that  humbleth 
himself  shall  be  exalted."  Nature  seems  to  abhor  an 
abnormally  developed  pride,  snobbery,  too  marked  a 
consciousness  of  superiority.  And  to  the  —  I  am  holier 
than  thou  —  feeling,  she  applies  always  the  brand. 
Hypocrite,  and  she  burns  it  deep. 

Another  makes  the  accumulation  of  material  things 
the  chief  object  of  his  life,  rising  from  humble  circum- 
stances, possessing  unusual  abilities,  but  giving  but  an 
infinitesimal  amount  of  these  abilities  to  his  city  or 
his  state,  both  badly  in  need  of  such  service ;  but  rather 
conspiring  with  their  enemies  to  make  special  privileges 
for  a  few  greater,  to  secure  acts  alienating  valuable 
properties  from  the  people  of  his  city  and  state,  to  avoid 
a  just  share  of  taxation,  thereby  defrauding  and  throw- 
ing greater  and  unjust  burdens  upon  all  of  his  fellow- 
men,  except  upon  those  equally  dishonest  and  contempt- 
ible in  this  same  practice  of  tax-evasion.  His  life  here 
closes  considerably  before  a  normal  and  well-rounded 
life  should  close,  and  on  quitting  he  directs  that  prac- 
tically the  entire  results  of  his  life  work  go  to  a  couple 
of  young  grandsons,  not  yet  in  their  teens,  in  order 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  285 

that  the  family  name  and  business  be  preserved. 
"  Every  man,"  said  Marcus  AureHus,  "  is  worth 
just  so  much  as  the  things  are  worth  about  which 
he  busies  himself."  The  business  may  be  preserved 
or  it  may  tumble  into  ruin.  Nature  deals  so  in 
mockery  when  a  man  fancies  he  can  have  a  con- 
trolling hand  in  the  final  actual  disposition  of  his 
material  possessions. 

The  family  name  may  be  preserved  and  it  may  be 
raised  even  to  a  higher  esteem,  or  it  may  be  preserved 
in  the  records  of  an  inebriate  asylum.  A  man  can 
have  an  actual  say  only  in  regard  to  his  own  life,  but 
never  in  regard  to  the  life  of  any  other.  Not  by  am- 
bition and  gain  alone  for  self  but,  — 

"  By  labor,  incessant  and  devout,  to  raise  earth  to 
heaven,  to  realize,  in  fact,  the  good  that  as  yet  exists 
only  in  idea  —  that  is  the  end  and  purpose  of  human 
life ;  and  in  fulfilling  it  we  achieve  and  maintain  our 
unity  each  with  every  other,  and  all  with  the  Divine." 

Many  a  rich  man's  son  has  found  the  handicap  of 
great  riches  too  great  to  allow  his  making  even  a  decent 
success  of  life ;  the  incentive  which  nature  seems  to  have 
decreed  as  a  healthy  and  strength-developing  stimulant 
has  been  neutralized  by  the  burden  which  an  over-rich 
father  has  dumped  upon  him.  "  Ungirt  loins,  unlit 
lamps,  unused  talents,  sink  a  man  like  lead.  Doing 
nothing  is  enough  for  ruin." 

Many  a  daughter  of  the  unduly  rich  has  found  her 
associations,  as  also  her  training  or  lack  of  training, 
of  such  a  nature  that  undue  pride  or  a  false  ambition 
has  taken  possession  of  her,  robbing  her  of  one  of  the 


286  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

chief  charms  of  womanhood,  and  a  designing  or  worse 
than  empty  marriage  has  fallen  to  her  portion. 

Surely  wealth  is  of  the  mind  and  the  heart  and  not 
of  the  hand.  And  the  man  who  makes  as  his  life  work 
only  gain  for  self,  and  who  fails  to  recognize  his  inexor- 
able relations  with  his  fellow-men,  fails  completely  in 
getting  from  life  what  he  thinks  he'll  get ;  for  he  finds 
that  what  he  gains  turns  to  a  greater  or  less  extent  to 
ashes  in  his  hands,  and  what  he  bequeaths  to  his  de- 
scendants is  far  below  what  it  might  be,  —  he  or  she 
who  is  at  all  zvorthy  of  receiving  such  bequest  would 
rather  it  be  a  few  millions  less  and  be  accompanied  with 
a  name  of  honour  and  a  memory  to  be  revered,  than 
that  it  come  with  the  tremendous  handicap  it  many 
times  comes  with. 

As  we  come  to  a  fuller  appreciation  of  these  facts 
and  of  the  laws  of  human  life  and  relations  that  will 
not  be  denied,  then  more  and  more  will  "  we  measure 
the  degree  of  civilization  not  by  accumulation  of  the 
means  of  living,  but  by  the  character  and  value  of  the 
life  lived." 

Now  I  have  said  naught  nor  would  I  say  aught, 
against  wealth.  I  believe  in  wealth  —  sufficient  for  all 
the  legitimate  comforts  of  life ;  and  I  believe  in  it  so 
thoroughly  that  I  plead  for  a  state  wherein  it  can  be- 
come the  portion  of  a  much  larger  number  than  has 
ever  yet  been  known.  And  while  I  do  not  share  in 
the  belief  that  our  time  is  necessarily  more  materi- 
alistic than  other  times  have  been,  I  do  realize  and  most 
keenly  that  the  economic  conditions  during  the  past 
few  years  have  produced  a  class  of  men  so  material- 


The  Land  of  Living  Men  287 

istic  in  their  entire  outlook,  so  insatiate  in  their  greed 
for  ever  larger  gain,  so  drunk  with  opportunity  and 
power,  that  they  would  pull  the  very  pillars  of  the 
state  to  the  ground,  if  a  united  and  determined  people 
did  not  come  forward  and  say,  so  far,  and  no  farther. 

It  is  against  the  aggressions  of  these  and  the  abuses 
we  have  permitted  them  to  give  birth  to  and  fatten 
upon,  the  aggressions  of  these  against  the  welfare  of 
their  fellows,  against  the  economic  and  political  insti- 
tutions of  the  nation,  that  we  must  battle  for  some  time 
to  come  with  an  alertness,  with  a  determination  and  a 
bravery  that  can  know  no  defeat.  With  a  mind  calm 
and  determined  and  with  malice  towards  none,  must 
these  great  battles  for  the  redemption  of  this  nation  be 
fought. 

And  as  excessive  zuealth  is  of  no  real  value  to  any 
man  nor  to  his  descendants,  but  becomes  more  often  a 
veritable  curse,  and  as  it  makes  its  possessors  many 
times  a  menace  to  the  very  welfare  of  the  nation  and 
to  the  welfare  of  every  man,  woman  and  child  in  the 
nation,  we  will  be  doing  a  twofold  service  through  such 
warfare  and  subsequent  vigilance,  in  saving  its  pos- 
sessors and  ■  its  would-be  possessors  from  their  own 
folly,  as  well  as  conserving  our  own  common  interests. 
It's  the  middle  ground  that  carries  with  it  the  satis- 
factory solution  of  life.  Excesses  have  to  be  paid  for 
with  heavy  and  sometimes  with  frightful  interest. 

Life,  the  life  of  everyone  has  its  perplexities,  its 
problems,  its  struggles  and  its  work  to  be  done.  Hu- 
manity is  brave,  and  there  are  but  few  who  do  not 
stand  up  like  men  and  women,  some  almost  like  very 


288  The  Land  of  Living  Men 

Gods,  to  the  end.  It  certainly  should  be  the  aim  of 
each  to  throw  no  hindrance  in  the  path  of  any  fellow- 
being,  to  make  no  load  heavier ;  but  rather  to  lend  the 
hand  whenever  we  can. 

Oh  the  skies  are  blue  and  a  ribboned  road 

Shall  the  pilgrim's  heart  beguile : 
Yet  hurry  not  so  fast  with  your  load, 

For  there  is  many  a  mile. 

And  it 's  here  a  friend  and  there  a  friend 

To  bear  your  hand  a  while : 
But  none  will  go  to  the  journey's  end, 

And  few  will  stay  the  mile. 

And  in  connection  with  the  problems  and  perplexities 
and  apparent  losses  that  come  and  that  must  be  met 
as  the  days  hurry  away,  I  believe  without  the  question 
of  a  doubt,  that  the  time  will  come  when  we  will  see  the 
part  that  each  thing  has  had  to  play  in  our  lives,  and  we 
will  give  thanks  that  it  came  just  as  it  came.  I  believe, 
moreover,  that  a  sort  of  an  inborn  universal  feeling  of 
this  nature  is  a  reason  why  humanity  is  brave. 

A  hope  that  never  wearies,  a  faith  that  defies  defeat, 
an  attitude  of  mind  that  compels  gladness,  will  help  us 
to  stand  like  men  until  we  realize  this  glad  culmination. 
And  if  one  would  find  the  easier  way,  it  lies  in  the  ever 
conscious  realization  —  "  Thou  wilt  keep  him  in  per- 
fect peace  whose  mind  is  stayed  on  thee." 


SUPPLEMENTARY 


SUPPLEMENTARY 

PART    I 

:SF  the  White  Plague — tuberculosis — Mr.  Hunter,* 
who  has  had  perhaps  as  great  opportunities  for 
observing  its  growth  and  its  methods  as  any- 
one not  directly  connected  with  the  medical 
^—i^  profession,  says :  "  It  is  a  needless  plague,  a 
preventable  plague.  It  is  one  of  the  results  of  our  inhu- 
mane tenements ;  it  follows  in  the  train  of  our  inhumane 
sweat-shops;  it  fastens  itself  upon  children  and  young  people 
because  we  forget  that  they  need  playgrounds  and  because  we 
are  selfish  and  niggardly  in  providing  breathing  spaces ;  it 
comes  where  the  hours  of  labor  are  long  and  the  wages 
small ;  it  afflicts  the  children  who  are  sent  to  labor  when  they 
should  yet  be  in  school ;  the  plague  goes  to  meet  them.  It  is 
a  brother  to  the  anguish  of  poverty,  and  wherever  food  is 
scant  and  bodies  half  clothed  and  rooms  dark,  this  hard  and 
relentless  brother  of  poverty  finds  a  victim.  .  .  . 

"  The  extent  of  the  White  Plague  is  one  of  the  best  tests  of 
a  high  or  low  state  of  society;  in  many  ways  it  is  the  truest 
and  most  accurate  of  social  tests.  The  number  of  its  victims 
will  indicate  the  districts  in  which  sweat-shops  flourish,  and 
the  streets  in  which  the  double-decker  tenement,  the  scourge 
of  New  York,  is  most  often  found.  Where  the  death  rate 
from  the  plague  is  greatest  there  ignorance  prevails;  drunken- 
ness is  rife;  poverty,  hunger,  and  cold  are  the  common 
misfortune.  .  .  . 

"  Tuberculosis  is  more  common  in  the  cities  than  in  the 
country.    The  death  rate  from  this  disease  in  the  cities  of  over 

*  "Poverty,"  p.  164  (MacMillan  &  Co.,  N.  Y,). 


IV  Supplementary 

twenty-five  thousand  inhabitants  is  about  twice  that  of  the 
rural  districts  of  the  State.  The  tenement  districts  suffer 
much  more  from  the  disease  than  do  the  well-to-do  districts. 
In  Paris  the  death  rate  is  three  times  as  great  in  the  poorest 
quarters  as  it  is  in  the  well-to-do  quarters.  In  Hamburg  the 
proportion  is  almost  the  same.  In  the  First  Ward,  near  the 
Battery  in  New  York  City,  fourteen  times  as  many  people  die 
from  tuberculosis,  in  proportion  to  population,  as  in  a  certain 
ward  adjoining  Central  Park.  Obviously  it  is  a  plague  which 
exists  much  more  among  the  poor  than  among  the  rich.  .  .  . 

"  The  disease  is  one  which  afifects  especially  residents  of 
the  tenements  and  the  workers  in  certain  trades,  as,  for  in- 
stance, printers,  tailors,  bookkeepers,  dressmakers,  bakers, 
cigar-makers,  potters,  stone-cutters,  file-grinders,  dyers,  wool- 
carders,  etc. 

"  To  know  why  these  classes  of  people  are  affected,  let  us 
for  a  moment  consider  how  the  disease  is  spread.  A  person 
having  consumption  can,  it  is  said,  expectorate  in  a  day  seven 
billions  of  germs  or  bacilli.  These  germs  or  bacilli  are  the 
only  cause  of  the  disease.  The  sputa  or  expectorations  from 
the  diseased  lungs  dry  and  afterward  become  a  pulverized 
dust  which  is  blown  about  through  tenements,  theatres,  street 
cars,  railway  trains,  offices,  and  factories.  In  fact,  the  infec- 
tion is  disseminated  wherever  tuberculosis  sputum  becomes 
dry  and  pulverized.  The  germ  is  killed  by  sunlight  and  lives 
but  a  short  time  in  the  open  air,  but  it  will  live  for  months  in 
darkness  or  in  places  artificially  lighted.  .  .  . 

"This  dry,  pulverized  dust  is  the  most  important  of  the 
means  of  spreading  tuberculosis  throughout  all  parts  of  the 
city,  so  that,  I  do  not  doubt,  a  consumptive  of  the  sweat-shop, 
spraying  the  garments  he  sews  by  sneezing  or  coughing,  may 
convey  to  some  delicate  lad  or  girl  in  a  far-distant  part  of  the 
country  or  in  a  wealthy  part  of  the  city  the  disease  which  the 
sweat-shop  has  given  him.  A  virulent  cause  of  consumption 
is  the  spray  discharged  from  the  nose,  lungs,  or  mouth  of  the 
consumptive   invalid.     As   before   mentioned,   those   near   the 


Supplementary  v 

person  suffering  from  tuberculosis  are  very  likely  to  contract 
the  disease.  Children  playing  about  on  the  floor,  kissing  or 
embracing  the  diseased  mother  or  father,  taking  the  milk 
from  a  tuberculosis  mother,  so  often  contract  the  disease  that 
the  mass  of  people  have  an  almost  unshakable  belief  that  it  is 
inherited.  Eminent  physicians,  however,  say  that  the  disease 
is  not  inherited.  ...  It  is  cheaper  in  every  way  to  cure  a  con- 
sumptive in  a  sanitarium  than  it  is  to  let  him  die  in  a  hospital 
or  in  a  public  institution  of  some  kind,  but  to  let  him  die  in  a 
hospital  or  institution  of  whatever  kind  is  cheaper  than  to 
let  him  die  in  his  tenement.  What  we  are  doing  now  is  just 
the  wrong  thing.  ...  It  is  unquestionably  the  duty  of  society 
to  care  for  the  victims  of  this  disease.  It  is  a  social  disease. 
Society  is  responsible  for  its  continuance.  .  .  . 

"  It  will  be  stamped  out  when  the  humane  work  of  the  Tene- 
ment House  Department  and  the  Health  Department  of  this 
city,  and  of  every  other  city,  is  victorious  over  opponents; 
when  there  is  established  in  the  mind  of  everyone  that  vital 
principle  of  an  advanced  civilization,  namely,  that  the  profits 
of  individuals  are  second  in  importance  to  the  life,  welfare, 
and  prosperity  of  the  great  masses  of  people.  It  will  disap- 
pear from  that  community  which  demands  the  destruction  of 
an  insanitary  tenement  regardless  of  inconvenience  to  indi- 
viduals and  which  also  demands  that  there  shall  be  no  dark 
and  windowless  rooms  within  its  boundaries  under  any  con- 
dition whatsoever,  as  a  result  of  any  plea,  or  as  a  favour  to 
private  interests  great  or  small." 

Certain  tenements  as  well  as  workshops  become  infected 
with  the  disease.  We  have  heard  of  the  "  Lung  Block  "  and 
also  of  the  "  Ink  Pot "  in  New  York,  both  with  their  fright- 
fully large  numbers  of  deaths  from  tuberculosis.  Mr.  Ernest 
Poole,  in  describing  the  conditions  in  this  latter  tenement, 
says :  "  It  has  front  and  rear  tenements  five  floors  high,  with 
a  foul,  narrow  court  between.  Here  live  one  hundred  and 
forty  people.  Twenty-three  are  babies.  Here  I  found  one 
man  sick  with  the  plague  in  the  front  house,  two  more  in  the 


vi  Supplementary 

rear  —  and  one  of  these  had  a  young  wife  and  four  children. 
Here  the  plague  lives  in  darkness  and  filth  —  filth  in  halls, 
over  walls  and  floors,  in  sinks  and  closets.  Here  in  nine 
years  alone  twenty-six  cases  have  been  reported.  How  many 
besides  these  were  kept  secret?  And  behind  these  nine  years 
-^,'io\''  many  cases  more  ? 

■'  Kooms  here  have  held  death  ready  and  waiting  for  years. 
Up  on  the  third  floor,  looking  down  into  the  court,  is  a  room 
with  two  little  closets  behind  it.  In  one  of  these  a  blind 
Scotchman  slept  and  took  the  plague  in  '94.  His  wife  and  his 
fifteen-year-old  son  both  drank,  and  the  home  grew  squalid  as 
the  tenement  itself.  He  died  in  the  hospital.  Only  a  few 
months  later  the  plague  fastened  again.  Slowly  his  little 
daughter  grew  used  to  the  fever,  the  coughing,  the  long, 
sleepless  nights.  The  foul  court  was  her  only  outlook.  At 
last  she,  too,  died.  The  mother  and  son  then  moved  away. 
But  in  this  room  the  germs  lived  on.  They  might  all  have 
been  killed  in  a  day  by  sunlight ;  they  can  live  two  years  in 
darkness.  Here  in  darkness  they  lived,  on  grimy  walls,  in 
dusky  nooks,  on  dirty  floors.  Then  one  year  later,  in  October, 
a  Jew  rented  this  same  room.  He  was  taken,  and  died  in  the 
summer.  This  room  was  rented  again  in  the  autumn  by  a 
German  and  his  wife.  She  had  the  plague  already,  and  died. 
Then  an  Irish  family  came  in.  The  father  was  a  hard,  steady 
worker,  and  loved  his  children.  The  home  this  time  was  win- 
ning the  fight.  But  six  months  later  he  took  the  plague.  He 
died  in  1901.  This  is  only  the  record  of  one  room  in  seven 
years." 

Professor  Koch,  who  a  little  over  twenty-five  years  ago  dis- 
covered the  cause  of  tuberculosis,  says  in  an  interview  on  the 
subject:  "In  all  other  infectious  diseases  we  attack  infection 
at  its  source ;  cases  of  small-pox,  of  leprosy,  of  diphtheria,  of 
plague,  are  isolated,  but  cases  of  tuberculosis  in  their  last 
stages,  the  most  deadly  stage  of  the  most  deadly  disease  of 
all,  are  still  allowed  throughout  Europe  to  spread  further  in- 


Supplementary  vii 

fection  broadcast  in  the  midst  of  their  already  destitute  fami- 
lies. This  fact  does  not  yet  seem  to  be  learned.  When  it  is, 
and  when  we  have  these  homes  for  the  hopeless  cases  adjoin- 
ing every  city,  then  tuberculosis  will  pass  from  the  midst  of 
us."  Again,  he  says:  "  It  is  not  cruelty  to  isolate  these  cases; 
it  is  the  truest  and  highest  kindness."  "  , 


•■.IS 


viii  Supplementary 


PART   II 

^>^^?'=±'.'%  HE  matter  of  the  play  life  of  the  children  (and 
'ilw;^f^,>  its  attendant  physical  and  moral  influences), 
especially  in  our  cities,  is  now  receiving  some 
^„;|  very  careful  attention  on  the  part  of  many 
St^^^^^^  thoughtful  people;  and  some  splendid  begin- 
nings are  already  made  in  this  direction.  Various  Playground 
Associations  have  been  organized  for  studying  into  and  devel- 
oping sufficiently  comprehensive  plans  to  meet  the  great  need, 
and  some  centres  have  made  most  noteworthy  accomplish- 
ments already. 

There  is  probably  no  city  that  has  made  such  progress  and 
that  has  succeeded  in  bringing  about  such  remarkable  results, 
and  in  a  comparatively  short  time,  as  has  Rochester,  New 
York.  The  following  all  to  brief  paragraphs  from  a  recently 
published  article  *  in  one  of  our  progressive  magazines,  gives 
some  slight  idea  of  what  it  is  doing  along  this  and  kindred 
lines : 

"  There  are  a  great  many  reasons  why  parents  are  glad  their 
children  are  born  in  Rochester.  One  is  that  Rochester  has  no 
real  tenement  evil,  no  real  congested  district.  The  factories 
are  being  pushed  into  the  suburbs,  and  the  workman  and  his 
family  follow.  Another  is  that  Rochester  leads  the  country 
in  its  preventive  municipal  work.  Typhoid  fever  is  unknown 
in  this  city.  Its  fight  for  pure  milk  is  known  the  world  over. 
Its  schoolroom  clinics  are  the  talk  of  the  medical  world.  It 
believes  in  keeping  its  boys  and  girls  out  of  reform  institutions 
by  making  them  so  busy  and  contented  that  they  do  not  get 
into  mischief.  And  finally  in  one  sort  of  school  or  another  it 
teaches  its  people,  grown-ups  as  well  as  children,  not  only  how 
*  "  Do  It  for  Rochester,"  by  Anna  Steese  Richardson,  in 
The  Woman's  Home  Cotnpanion,  September,  1910. 


Supplementary  ix 

to  study,  but  how  to  prepare  for  wage-earning  and  how  to 
enjoy  their  earnings. 

"  Two  agencies  work  to  start  Rochester  children  aright,  to 
insure  them  the  boon  of  good  health,  and  these  are  the  Health 
Bureau  and  the  Rochester  Public  Health  Association.  While 
they  work  along  slightly  different  lines  they  co-operate,  and 
their  common  motto  is :  '  For  the  children,  Justice  not  Char- 
ity.' They  make  their  appeal  to  politicians  and  voters  by 
proving  that  ill  health  makes  of  children  public  charges,  either 
as  criminals  or  consumptives. 

"  In  May,  1902,  some  true  Rochesterites  gathered  in  the 
Brick  Church  Institute,  of  which  you  will  hear  more  later,  and 
formed  '  The  Children's  Playground  League.' 

"  In  seven  years  the  Playground  League  secured  the  following 
benefits  for  the  children  of  Rochester  :  First :  The  playground 
at  Brown  Square  now  under  the  Park  Board.  Second :  The 
playground  at  No.  26  School  now  under  the  Park  Board. 
Third :  The  playground  at  No.  14  School  now  under  the 
School  Board.  Fourth  :  The  playground  at  No.  36  School  now 
under  the  School  Board.  Fifth:  The  fifty-thousand-dollar 
playground  and  bath  at  No.  9  School  under  the  School  Board. 
Sixth:  The  Hartford  Street  playground  (Italian)  under  the 
Park  Board.  Seventh :  The  playground  and  athletic  fields  in 
the  park  system.  Eighth  :  The  annual  appropriation  for  main- 
tenance of  playgrounds  by  the  School  and  Park  Boards. 
Ninth :  The  charter  amendment  relating  to  future  play  centres 
and  their  control  by  the  Common  Council  and  the  Board  of 
Education,  respectively. 

"  Doubtless  you  have  playgrounds  in  your  town,  but  with  a 
•difference.  The  members  of  your  association  may  have 
trouble  raising  funds,  making  both  ends  meet,  securing  co- 
operation. Rochester  solved  these  problems  through  its  Play- 
ground League  by  securing  the  co-operation  of  Park  Board, 
School  Board,  and  City  Council.  In  other  words,  the  munic- 
ipality of  Rochester  considers  that  supplying  outdoor  recrea- 
tion for  its  growing  children  is  a  sacred  duty  which  must  be 


X  Supplementary 

performed.  In  operation  the  Rochester  playground  differs 
sHghtly  from  the  average  recreation  centre  of  this  sort,  inso- 
much as  it  provides  wading  and  swimming  pools,  and  shower 
baths  in  warm  weather,  and  tobogganing,  skating,  and  sliding 
grounds  for  winter. 

"  Following  close  on  the  heels  of  the  playground  for  children 
comes  the  Rochester  Physical  Education  Association  whose 
object  is  to  provide  for  their  older  brothers  and  sisters,  their 
parents,  their  cousins,  and  their  aunts  the  sort  of  recreation 
and  activities  which  will  make  better  citizens  for  Rochester. 

"  Now,  just  to  show  you  how  Rochester  pulls  together  in  the 
interests  of  its  citizens,  let  me  tell  you  that  on  the  Advisory 
Board  of  this  society  are  men  and  women  representing  the  fol- 
lowing Rochester  organizations." 

Here  follows  an  enumeration  of  thirty  different  organiza- 
tions. 

"  Neither  creed,  colour,  nor  caste  counts  when  the  needs,  the 
health,  the  contentment  of  Rochester  are  at  stake.  And  the 
result  of  all  this  co-operation  in  Rochester  means  that  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  in  that  city  believe  the  parks  belong 
to  them,  are  to  be  used  and  protected  by  them.  The  real  park 
season  opens  there  every  spring  with  a  carnival  of  sports  and 
rejoicing  which  is  worth  seeing,  athletic  events,  field  sports, 
polo,  automobile  and  boat  racing  by  day,  and  illumination  by 
night. 

"  Do  you  think  that  in  your  town  you  could  get  thirty  sep- 
arate organizations  to  work  for  one  common  movement?  Do 
you  think  that  the  presidents  or  leaders  of  thirty  such  organi- 
zations would  be  willing  to  be  '  among  those  present '  for  the 
good  of  your  town?  Try  it.  For  here  lies  one  secret  of 
Rochester's  municipal  greatness  —  the  willingness  of  its  leaders 
to  '  mix  '  and  co-operate." 


Supplementary 


XI 


PART   III 


^N  view  of  these  facts  it  is  interesting  to  note  the 
following,  a  conversation  between  the  well-known 
author  of  that  widely  circulated  little  book,  "  Mer- 
^  rie  England,"  and  one  of  the  subjects,  a  working- 
man  subject,  of  the  King.  The  title  of  the  chap- 
ter in  which  it  occurs  is,  "  Who  Makes  the  Wealth,  and  Who 
Gets  It?" 

"Now,  John,  what  are  the  evils  of  which  we  complain? 
Lowness  of  wages,  length  of  working  hours,  uncertainty  of 
employment,  insecurity  of  the  future,  low  standards  of  public 
health  and  morality,  prevalence  of  pauperism  and  crime,  and 
the  existence  of  false  ideals  of  life. 

"  I  will  give  you  a  few  examples  of  the  things  I  mean.  It  is 
estimated  that  in  this  country,with  its  population  of  thirty-six 
millions,  there  are  generally  about  700,000  men  out  of  work. 
There  are  about  800,000  paupers.  Of  every  thousand  persons 
who  die  in  Merrie  England  over  nine  hundred  die  without 
leaving  any  property  at  all.  About  eight  millions  of  people 
exist  always  on  the  borders  of  destitution.  About  twenty  mil- 
lions are  poor.  More  than  half  the  national  income  belongs 
to  about  ten  thousand  people.  About  thirty  thousand  people 
own  fifty-five  fifty-sixths  of  the  land  and  capital  of  the  king- 
dom, but  of  thirty-six  millions  of  people  only  one  and  one- 
half  millions  get  above  $15  a  week.  The  average  income  per 
head  of  the  working  classes  is  about  $85  a  year,  or  less  than 
twenty-five  cents  a  day.  There  are  millions  of  our  people 
working  under  conditions  and  living  in  homes  that  are  simply 
disgraceful.  The  sum  of  crime,  vice,  drunkenness,  gambling, 
prostitution,  idleness,  ignorance,  want,  disease,  and  death  is 
appalling.  .  .  .  To  what  are  the  above  evils  due?     They  are 


xii  Supplementary 

due  to  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth,  and  to  the  absence 
of  justice  and  order  from  our  society. 

"  Political  orators  and  newspaper  editors  are  very  fond  of 
talking  to  you  about  'your  country.'  Now,  Mr.  Smith,  it  is  a 
hard  practical  fact  that  you  have  not  got  any  country.  The 
British  Islands  do  not  belong  to  the  British  people;  they  be- 
long to  a  few  thousands  —  certainly  not  half  a  million  — of 
rich  men." 


Supplementary  xiii 


PART   IV 

fJs^^^^^ig^'HlLE  speaking  of  Mr.  Folk,  it  may  not  be  un- 
interesting to  note  some  of  his  findings  when 
^  Y  »  \  ^  ^^    the  bills  of  the  old  score  were  one  day  finally 
|h_\f     ^^i|     presented    for    redemption.      The    following    is 
•kir-c^ -^^^.i^^ji;^    from  a  public  address  delivered  at  an  important 
centre  of  the  State  of  which  he  was  recently  Governor : 

"  For  another  franchise  $250,000  in  bribes  was  paid  to  the 
members  of  the  preceding  assembly.  This  franchise  was  after- 
ward sold  for  $1,250,000,  but  the  city  received  not  a  cent. 
Twenty-three  of  the  twenty-eight  members  of  the  House  of 
Delegates  took  bribes  of  $3,000  each  for  this  franchise.  Seven 
members  of  the  council  obtained  from  $10,000  to  $17,500  each 
for  their  votes.  One  councilman  was  given  $25,000  to  vote 
against  the  franchise  and  afterward  accepted  $50,000  to  vote  in 
favour  of  it.  He  returned  the  $25,000  to  the  man  who  gave  it 
to  him,  saying  he  did  not  believe  he  could  'honestly'  keep  it 
without  '  earning '  it  by  giving  his  vote  in  accordance  with  the 
terms  of  purchase.  Upon  reflection  he  likewise  sent  the  $50,000 
back,  with  the  hope  of  getting  more.  He  finally  voted  for  the 
ordinance  with  the  expectation  and  under  promise  of  obtaining 
$100,000  for  his  vote. 

"  His  friend,  the  promoter,  disappointed  him  by  leaving  the 
city  early  the  next  day  without  paying  him.  More  in  sorrow 
than  in  anger  the  official  tracked  the  promoter  to  New  York, 
and  after  much  difficulty  succeeded  in  obtaining  $5,000,  but  not 
until  the  promoter  had  him  sign  a  certificate  of  character  say- 
ing, '  I  have  heard  rumours  in  St.  Louis  that  you  paid  members 
of  the  assembly  for  their  votes.  I  want  to  say  that  I  am  in  a 
position  to  know,  and  I  do  know  that  you  are  as  far  above 
offering  a  bribe  as  I  am  above  receiving  one.'  This  was  liter- 
ally true,  as  the  official  had  taken  bribes  right  and  left,  and  the 


xiv  Supplementary 

promoter  had  boodled  on  a  gigantic  scale  in  getting  his  bill 
through  the  municipal  assembly. 

"Seven  members  of  the  council,  elected  to  serve  the  people 
at  a  salary  of  $300  a  year,  were  paid  a  regular  salary  of  $5,000 
yearly  to  represent  corporate  interests.  A  lighting  bill  was 
bribed  through  the  House  of  Delegates  for  $47,500.  The  bar- 
gain was  made  right  on  the  floor  of  the  House.  The  money 
was  given  to  one  of  the  members,  and  after  the  meeting  they 
met  in  the  home  of  one  of  their  number,  where  the  '  pie '  was 
cut  and  the  money  divided.  .  .  .  Nineteen  members  of  another 
House  of  Delegates  obtained  $2,000  each  as  bribes  for  their 
votes  on  still  another  franchise. 

"  Men  would  run  for  a  seat  in  the  municipal  assembly  with 
the  sole  object  of  making  money  by  the  prostitution  of  their 
position.  The  scheme  of  corruption  was  systematic  and  far- 
reaching.  The  people  were  careless;  the  public  conscience  was 
asleep.  These  city  legislators  went  on  without  hindrance. 
They  devised  a  scheme  of  selling  the  water-works,  which  be- 
longed to  the  city,  for  $15,000,000,  the  works  being  worth  about 
$40,000,000.  They  planned  to  get  $100,000  apiece  for  their  votes 
on  this.  The  proposed  sale  failed,  because  of  a  wise  provision 
of  the  city  charter  forbidding  unconditional  alienation. 

"  Then  their  gloating  eyes  fell  on  the  old  court  house  with 
the  gilded  dome.  They  thought  of  selling  that.  They  hoped 
to  obtain  $100,000  apiece  for  their  votes  on  this.  Then  they 
concluded  to  sell  the  Union  Market,  but  the  market  men  had 
considerable  political  influence.  With  this  and  the  sum  of 
$20,000  they  raised  and  paid  the  members  they  succeeded  in 
stopping  the  sale.  Then  came  the  exposure.  Now  some  of 
these  representatives  are  fugitives  from  justice  in  foreign 
countries ;  others  have  turned  State's  evidence ;  the  remainder 
have  faced  juries,  and  eighteen  of  these  givers  and  takers  of 
bribes  have  received  sentences  ranging  from  two  years  to  seven 
years  in  the  penitentiary.  .  .  .  These  conditions  are  the  out- 
growth of  the  commercialism  of  our  times." 


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